Scriblio is an OPAC (online public access catalogue) used by the Lamson Library at Plymouth State University, and was developed by their information architect Casey Bisson. Because this free open source software is based on the WordPress platform, it comes with many of the blogging software’s capabilities such as tagging and comments.

When performing a catalogue search, the search results are displayed with standard information such as title and author, but the tags associated with the items are also displayed. As with other uses of tags, clicking on a tag brings the user to a list of other items also labeled with that tag. Once a user selects an item to view from their search results the tags are then displayed in a column to the right of the item record. Unfortunately, there is no indication that this list, though cleverly grouped into facets that I could see being very useful, is in fact a list of tags. The familiar associations with tags, including the blue hyperlinked colour and the tag cloud format, are abandoned. In fact, the right-hand column is so far over that it is entirely cut off when viewing the website on a smaller monitor. This may result in some confused patrons wondering where the tag cloud they saw on the results page went to. The origin of the tags for the different records is unclear. There appears to be no method for library patrons’ input, so they can be assumed to be created by a cataloguer or from an imported source. As Karen Schneider’s post on ALA Tech Source exemplifies, much of the literature about Scriblio is focused on its availability and compatibility for all library systems, and details such as tagging are not emphasized. In the spirit of Library 2.0 I would, of course, prefer to see the option for users to input their own tags for library holdings. Without that function, the tags in this catalogue simply act as an alternate (and effective) search method.

(image source: http://flickr.com/photos/scriblio/1691023808/)

One participatory feature that does seem to be very well designed is the ability for users to comment within the catalogue. There is a place to comment on almost every library page and every item record. Through the use of the library blog the staff seem very encouraging of patrons posting feedback about their satisfaction with the new catalogue system. While there appears not to be too many comments throughout the catalogue presently, the system did just launch recently in September 2007.

The catalogue does include other interesting features that make it unique and quite useful: imported book summaries from Amazon.com; the ability to view item records in the former catalogue format; a colour image of the book jacket for many holdings; and automatically generated lists of similar items. In addition, as explained by Jenny Levine in an ALA Tech Source blog posting, because the catalogue is web-based, each item record has its own permanent online location, and can therefore be indexed and searched by tools such as Google.

Even though Scriblio’s use of tagging could be improved, the catalogue is nonetheless innovative. As Michael Stephens reports in Technology Trends for a 2.0 World, an article in the Sept/Oct 2007 edition of Library Technology Reports, Scriblio’s use of Library 2.0 tools does “point to what our future catalogs should do”.