Summary of Sessions

After a short refreshment break we had small group discussions with the three panelists, and then a closing summary session. Then each panelist summarized the group discussion.

Some thoughts and observations:

• Librarians worried about commercialism of Amazon ads on World Cat Local, but no other user group worried.
• Conference proceedings would be a useful limit--exists in current Melvyl
• A customizable interface would be a nice enhancement to World Cat Melvyl.
• Question: Are we overly simplistic about what user needs are? Amazon model not always relevant.
• Next Generation Technical Services group must consider impact of the Hathi Trust agreement for mass digitization.
• Big challenge: Ingesting non-Roman scripts.
• OCLC tagging systems using LC subject headings is currently in research phrase.
• Why do users tag, or who is more likely to tag? One view here: http://mstrohm.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/why-do-users-tag-detecting-user-motivation-in-tagging-systems/
• How can user-contributed metadata be trusted? Faculty sometimes concerned about Wikipedia etc.