This past week, I met with Gwen and Laurie, as well as the information technology guru at fd2s, to discuss options for creating the online catalog component. I decided putting everything in a digital format would be easiest, and when everything is in one place, we will be better able to manipulate the physical locations and labeling of materials.
We discussed the options I’ve talked about in the blog, and ultimately, the decision was made to use the LibraryThing platform for the physical materials. It’s visual, easy to use, customizable, and inexpensive. Though it is in beta (still!), the information uploaded and manipulated can be downloaded into a spreadsheet to ensure it remains in one place, on a local computer.
After making this decision, I found out the library has a bit of a scheme in its organization already. When the LibraryThing catalog is up and running, this might be worth considering as a basis for physical organization — if there is something there already, it might be worth considering as the means of organizing with a little cleanup. I also poked around the materials collection, which is where my research and planning for the next week or so will be focused. This will be a bigger challenge than originally thought, but I do think it can be tackled in a very simple (almost archival) manner.
We now have our account set up with LibraryThing, and have ordered a barcode scanner, so we are truly moving forward! We’ve cleaned out the junk books from the collection are are ready to roll.
I really want to like LibraryThing…but our little barcode scanner has arrived and LibraryThing has been down almost all morning. I got one book entered as a trial (I think), and they’re back down. I hope it’s not a Sign of how it’s going to be.