Presenter Information

Peter Green, Curtin UniversityFollow

Session Number

Poster Session

Description

The author presented a paper at IATUL 2012 'Visualization for New Generation Users in the Age of the Electronic Book’ in which he described why we should take advantage of the rich visual tradition of the book cover and the opportunities offered by modern information technologies to restore to our readers some of the discovery opportunities we have lost in the transition from paper to electronic, a transition that is being driven by client demand for online materials that are available anywhere, anytime. In particular he talked about shelf browsing and new books displays as a valued part of our discovery tradition that had been eroded and diminished by this relentless drive towards electronic monograph content. Restoring serendipitous discovery has become a strategic imperative if libraries are to retain their relevance as places of discovery in the new online age.

Since that paper was presented Curtin University Library has responded to the challenge by producing an award winning virtual bookshelf software that provides an exciting way for presenting library materials using the cover images of books, both digital and physical, which provides for discovery in a manner reminiscent of traditional browsing. This poster will describe the different ways in which the virtual bookshelf is manifest, how the library makes the software available as open source, and how the virtual bookshelf has been received by library clients.

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Jun 3rd, 12:00 AM

Virtualising the Bookshelf

The author presented a paper at IATUL 2012 'Visualization for New Generation Users in the Age of the Electronic Book’ in which he described why we should take advantage of the rich visual tradition of the book cover and the opportunities offered by modern information technologies to restore to our readers some of the discovery opportunities we have lost in the transition from paper to electronic, a transition that is being driven by client demand for online materials that are available anywhere, anytime. In particular he talked about shelf browsing and new books displays as a valued part of our discovery tradition that had been eroded and diminished by this relentless drive towards electronic monograph content. Restoring serendipitous discovery has become a strategic imperative if libraries are to retain their relevance as places of discovery in the new online age.

Since that paper was presented Curtin University Library has responded to the challenge by producing an award winning virtual bookshelf software that provides an exciting way for presenting library materials using the cover images of books, both digital and physical, which provides for discovery in a manner reminiscent of traditional browsing. This poster will describe the different ways in which the virtual bookshelf is manifest, how the library makes the software available as open source, and how the virtual bookshelf has been received by library clients.