From Dominance to Decline? The Future of Bibliographic Discovery, Access and Delivery - 2 views
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Garrett Eastman on 22 Jun 10A review of four bibliographic utility studies on library catalogs points out that the library catalog is no longer the starting point for students and researchers and that it has been eclipsed by easier-to-use and more convenient tools such as Google Books, Google Scholar, and LibraryThing. The author suggests that catalog developers learn from these tools and draw on their metadata; include "social" enhancements such as tagging, comments, and reviews; develop systems that are user-focused rather than librarian-focused; forsake the local catalog for the union catalog to reduce duplication of effort