Re: Personal Z39.50 client, anyone?

[Karen Coyle <karen.coyle@ucop.edu>]

At 07:14 PM 5/25/00 -0700, Ben Ostrowsky wrote:
>
>My vision is of a personal Z39.50 client -- call it a "library intelligent
>agent" if you like.  I'll use the name ShelfMinder for now, but I'm not
>attached to it.
>

Some of our users are essentially working in this environment using the
EndNote product. EndNote is a bibliographic software package that includes
a Z39.50 client. Users open EndNote and query our catalog through its
interface. Retrieved items are downloaded into their EndNote database,
creating a searchable and printable bibliography. We have users that never
actually go to the library catalog interface because EndNote supplies them
with the tools that they need.

I like the idea of users having a personal bibliographic space. It's much
like the Memex of V. Bush. I also want that space to have good tools for
searching, displaying, and interacting with documents. I would like it to
be able to create clusters of like documents, remove or highlight possible
duplicates, etc. 

EndNote creates this personal bibliographic space on the client machine.
The "my library" model is that the user's space resides on the server and
is therefore accessible from anywhere. I don't think that one model is
inherently superior to the other, I think there are users who will prefer
one over the other for reasons of their own. 

I think your ShelfMinder model is one worth pursuing. It sounds like it
meets the client-side model and has a lot of possibilities for extension in
terms of user services.

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Karen Coyle                    karen.coyle@ucop.edu
  University of California Digital Library
  http://www.kcoyle.net        510/987-0567
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