I've been exploring the new DBRL catalog format. Bibliocommons is a great improvement in many ways. I love the pictures! The catalog pages are visually appealing and the immediate movement of the scrolling book covers add excitement. The little blurb that appears below many of the books is a good feature. Playing with the interface, exploring the many features is great fun. If I knew the exact title of a book in the system, it popped right up.
Using it to actually try to find books without an exact title is easier than the old system. What few problems I had, I suspect relate back to the underlying SIRSI catalog, and the old standby: "user error." That is to say, at times, I didn't know exactly what I was looking for....and floundered a bit trying to narrow down my choices. Unfortunately, patrons often are not able to give us an exact title.
The social networking aspects are useful and interesting. I made a list of local Callaway authors and rated a few books I liked. There were times, during the after school busy period, that it seemed a bit slow to handle these additional features. Probably because our internet connection is fully loaded during those periods.
It is absolutely essential that ALL staff who will be working with the public get comfortable with the new system before it is opened to the public. I'm sure we will have many questions, and we don't want to be fumbling for answers.
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