Any professional, from Head of Service to ILL Librarian to local Web Developer, MUST watch this video - it's revolutionary, and will challange many of your perceptions about what a union catalogue is. It is also the first indicator of Talis' moving from "talking the talk" to "walking the walk".
http://www.talis.com/tdn/20minuteunion_video
WHAT THIS SHOWS:
After a 10 minute intro, Rob takes 20 minutes to build a working Union database with a simple UI, offering searching and refining, which returns bibliographic records and deep-linked holdings. He then takes a few more minutes to add some faceting in, just because he can!
A brief caveat - if you're non-technical, watch the first 10 mins, and the last 2 (if rushed, just read this post which explains the value to your institution). If you're a web developer for your authority, watch the whole thing and discover how you can build your own union with 170 lines of code (I kid you not!). Then, see if you can find yourself 20mins...
WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOUR INSTITUTION:
Your data has been siloed for a long time now. If you wanted to build a union, it meant complex, time consuming projects and great expense. It meant meta-search and Z39.50 and working through the many external political, cultural and social barriers libraries have spent so long erecting and vendors have positively encouraged (so they can sell their latest and greatest solution to this "silo" problem). It meant slow results as 5, or 10 or 50 servers were hit (and just forget any de-duping or relevancy ranking or facets).
What Rob has shown here is that it's not complex - it's simple. It's not time-consuming - you can do it over your lunch (maybe even your coffee break!). And most importantly, it's not expensive - it's FREE.
WHAT UNION CATALOGUE DO YOU WANT TO BUILD TODAY?:
Take 5 mins, and consider what Union you want to build. I'm going to pretend I'm back as an "in the field" librarian...
"Well, the first one I want is strategic - a "cross-sectoral union". I'm going to start in the morning with a union which has both the public library and local academic institution in it (University, Further Education, etc). Yeah, it may take a month of pointless chat to break down those logistic barriers, but it'll only take me an hour to build it and surely that will help build the foundation to start the discussion.
Next, I'm going to start considering local institutions, businesses, archives, corporates - anyone with a library who wants to "open it up a bit". And if they don't, but maybe they're prepared to do some inter-lending, then I'll build a closed union which just staff use. Cross-sectoral collaboration - you've got to love it!
In the afternoon, I'm going to create a union for my region, because it will help for regional ILL's. Just something simple - I don't know, the "North West" or "East Midlands". We can create our own branding and community (another hour...sigh...all this effort...I need a drink...)
Ahhh...thats better, sitting at home by my PC. Hmmm, well, its an hour before "Battlestar Galactica" starts - I might as well build a National Union for Scotland - I'm sure they were looking at doing that - this way, I could save them a lot of time and effort and money - it's the professional thing to do...
And so, to bed. Its been a busy day - I've formed a partnership with my local university and created a public union of both our catalogues. I got talking with some local businesses and institutions, and we set up a closed union so we can interlend to one another and share resources (and maybe expose opportunites for further collaboration in the future). Then I did that regional union - that should be a real boon for the public as well as staff, being able to easily see what books are in the collections of nearby authorities (and if they are in or not at the moment, with that deep-linking to their OPAC's). And then, before the cylons attacked, I got all altruisitc and created that National Union for Scotland."
This is something unique which other domain solutions, like Worldcat or UnityUK, just do not offer currently. This is the true openness, of both data and function, which Talis have been talking about. It's about value, sharing and collaboration, the cornerstones of librarianship. It is about you developing solutions to directly benefit your users, your institution and your partners. The Talis Platform demonstrates that your data need not be locked away in another "walled garden" with a ridiculously high entry fee. It can be re-shaped, re-used, revitalising your strategy and organisation. With a little imagination, think what you can achieve.
So, I wonder what my "in the field" librarian will do tomorrow? What will you do? In fact, more importantly, I wonder what Talis will do tomorrow...don't you?
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