Anytime, anyplace, anywhere
Talkingtech a technical partner of Talis came in today to discuss our joint venture, Talis Message.
I’ve heard my colleagues raving about Talis Message. They get all excited about how the system sends a “friendly reminder that a book is overdue” or “allowing library users to reserve a book/renew a book over the phone” which is great because it saves time for librarians to do fun stuff…... which is of course is good.
But I’m a little different, what I like about Talis Message is that it gives library users, choice. I love choice. For instance:
• Do I buy a Porsche or an Aston Martin?
• Do I visit my bank in person, use telephone banking or internet banking to check if I have enough money to buy a new car?
Unfortunately, no matter what my decision is in the latter choice I always get the same response “Mr White, you couldn’t even buy a model Aston Martin let alone a real one – please stop phoning us”.
Obviously my dreams were heartlessly broken over the phone on this occasion. But it was my choice; I choose to use the phone. It was what suited me the best at the time.
I also want several choices of discovering where a book is. There are already lots of choices available:
• Download it from Google Book Search (read about it here)
• Use Talis Source
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk
• Go to my local bookshop
• Use Google’s Find in a Library feature.
• Ask the knowledgeable librarian
• Online via the library’s OPAC?
• Use Worldcat.org
• Use Talis Whisper
• Use one of the many Library mashups
It’s my choice and my choice will vary depending where, when and what I am doing. I am passionate about libraries and whole heartedly believe that libraries do matter – especially with an ever increasingly skilled workforce.
So the need to discover and use the rich content in libraries will increase and library users will want to on their terms, in a way that they suits them.
Contributing your holdings to the Talis Platform simply provides the citizens, students and potential library users another means of discovering that you do have a particular book. Surely that’s a good thing for everyone? And the fact that contributing to the Talis Platform is free must only make the whole proposition more attractive.
(Photo taken by Simon Davison displayed in Flickr)
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