Thursday, November 15, 2007

Thing 12--Rollyo, no?

I'm not saying I don't like Rollyo. In theory, it is tres cool. I did, however, have a problem making a searchroll (look, Ma, new vocab.) that I am satisfied with. Originally, I wanted to create a "Desperation Md. Library" searchroll, where someone (procrastinating student or book club member) who doesn't have time to wait for Marina and needs to find an available copy of a book or movie can search all the MD public libraries catalogs at once to see to what ends of the state he/she may have to drive to to get that last remaining copy of Catcher in the Rye or Memory Keeper's Daughter. Alas, I was not thinking clearly; how can a search search a search (clear as mud?). Anyway, I ended up creating a much lamer Rollyo that let's you search the generalpublic library web pages for any key word. The thinking is that some wayward patron may have heard of a program or event at some library, but forgotten which system, viola "Which MD Library?" to the rescue. I'm not really sure yet how well this works or how useful it is, but here it is nonetheless. http://rollyo.com/sobieckj/which_md_library/

One more note on Rollyo. I know it is suppose to help, but it does suffer the fundamental problems that all these new online tools suffer from--it provides more fodder to the already overflowing trough of information and is only as good as the person who put it together.

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