In the old days, when digging through paper card catalogs was a big pain, lots of people browsed the shelves in libraries. Today, online catalogs add expected precision in finding the precise item and its location, but what if you want to get back to your browsing days? Some libraries have adopted discovery layer products and bookstore model displays, and users leaf through what is all there, a great attempt at “old school” browsing. But, what about all of the other perfectly good book treasures buried in the stacks?
I recently saw a blog post that was written for the professional to explore their library by browsing, but it could be adapted for your library users too. Bring back browsing is what I say…some of the best books I have read have been as a result of going into the stacks, closing my eyes, turning around three times, and pointing at a random book for my next read. Serendipity is sweet sometimes! Get all of the details for doing a library scavenger hunt to explore the stacks here.
Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/l6sc8te, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Recently released by Minnesota-based company, Third Iron, Browzine is an app created by librarian, John Seguin. According to the Browzine press release “With BrowZine, users can easily find journals made available by their library, browse titles of interest, and read individual articles or the complete journal.” It also syncs with Dropbox and box.com for easy distribution and citation of articles.
There are two different versions of the app; one version gives the user access to open-access journals, and another requires a sync to occur between their library (whether public, school, or academic) and the app — authentication gains them access to most of their library’s online database collection. In other words, the library needs to have subscribed to the Browzine service for the sync to occur. If a library is interested in subscribing to Browzine they should consider reviewing this video, and visiting the Browzine website for additional information.
The app is free to the user, and is currently specific to the iPad (though plans are in the works for an Android app). It requires iOS 5.1 or later.
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In the old days, when digging through paper card catalogs was a big pain, lots of people browsed the shelves in libraries. Today, online catalogs add expected precision in finding the precise item and its location, but what if you want to get back to your browsing days? Some libraries have adopted discovery layer products and bookstore model displays, and users leaf through what is all there, a great attempt at “old school” browsing. But, what about all of the other perfectly good book treasures buried in the stacks?