Mosio Launches Text-Reference; OCLC Signs Agreement with French Library; Elsevier Article 2.0; LibraryThing Adds Reviews

-- Library Journal, 10/23/2008

If you thought fielding traditional reference questions via old technology, like email, LOL, could be challenging, OMG! get ready: thanks to Text a Librarian, from mobile reference provider Mosio, there’s now a simple interface for more librarians to field reference questions from students and patrons via SMS text. Oh, GR8.

Text-reference isn't new, but it isn't exactly ubiquitous either. Now, using the platform, users send reference inquiries to a central number along with a keyword assigned to each participating school, for example YALE, KU, etc. The questions go into a queue and are then distributed to reference librarians. Librarians at participating institutions respond to their own students’ queries via their regular email accounts or instant message applications and their responses are then sent back to users as a text message—with both the question and answer archived for each school or library into what Mosio calls the Questionarium—which sounds more like a George W. Bush neologism than an actual archive, but, as the kids like to say, whatever:)  

The service is offered in packages starting at $99 per month per library, along with a one-time setup fee of $199. Suggested uses by Mosio: title suggestions, service requests, and renewals. But we’re sure you’ll get some “nearest bathroom” requests for your Questionarium, and while we’d like to believe that the service will be useful for those who can’t get to the library, we’re sure you’ll get a few texts from two tables away…

OCLC and Bibliothèque nationale de France announced this week that they signed letter of intent during the recent IFLA Conference to work cooperatively to add records from the French national library to OCLC’s WorldCat. Once an agreement is finalized, OCLC anticipates processing an estimated 13.2 million bibliographic records from Bibliothèque nationale de France, increasing the visibility of the unique resources held there…

In September, leading STM publisher Elsevier put forth an interesting—if largely unnoticed question (thanks for the heads up to Yale's Ann Okerson): what if you were the publisher? While we’re sure many of you Elsevier customers could, well, run wild with that one—it’s actually the basis of a clever “Article 2.0” contest sponsored by Elsevier Labs, to encourage “creative individuals to use the Elsevier Article 2.0 API to develop a “unique yet useful web-based journal article rendering application.”

Each contestant will be provided online access to approximately 7500 full-text XML articles from Elsevier journals, including the associated images, and encouraged to show their 2.0 stuff. First prize is $4000; second prize is $2000, and third place is $1000. Deadline is December 31, 2008, with the awards announced the following month. We think a librarian should almost certainly claim the top prize…

Speaking of 2.0 developments, LibraryThing, the social cataloging site that offers features to libraries like tag clouds and book recommendations, is expanding further into the social OPAC arena with the introduction of user reviews into LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL). The new Reviews Enhancement package gives patrons at subscribing institutions the ability to both read book reviews from other library users as well as add their own, all without leaving the item page in the library’s online catalog.

The move by LibraryThing follows this growing trend of OPAC-based collectivized data distribution, also seen in other new catalog interfaces like BiblioCommons and SOPAC 2.0, as well as in the subscription distribution model of the competing reviews provider ChiliFresh. The cost for the Reviews Enhancement package is determined by a “subscription fee based on book circulation and other factors relating to OPAC use,” with a $1000 minimum for all libraries, not counting consortial discounts.

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