The Catalog as a Participatory Platform

Chris Sinkler-Miller, Carleton, csmiller@carleton.edu

Don Neu, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, dneu@csbsju.edu

Heather Tompkins, Carleton, htompkin@carleton.edu

LeAnn Suchy, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, lsuchy@csbsju.edu 

Abstract:  Will the future catalog remain in the Web 1.0 idea of being just an information source or will the catalog evolve to adopt the Web 2.0 idea of the web as a participatory platform? We believe the catalog should look and act more like social networking sites. Social networking sites are becoming more advanced and will continue to grow, and while libraries used to be on the cutting edge of new technologies, our current catalog is lagging far behind. We’d like to argue that the future of the catalog should look and act like a mix between some current catalog features and features of social networking sites like Shelfari, Listal, WhatsOnMyBookshelf, What Should I Read Next?, and more. Our users increasingly expect websites to be graphic and customizable, they expect to contribute to websites easily, and they value their virtual friends just as much as their friends standing next to them. Our presentation would discuss some of the features of both the current catalog and the social web, and propose how a combination of ideas from both could be incorporated to help libraries not only better serve our users but once again be on the cutting edge of technology.