MPOW recently switched on a function on our III Opac which allows users to add a star rating to items in the catalogue. In one of those late night conversations in Second Life, I showed it to Dave Pattern, who was motivated by the green tinge he felt to code his own version and pop it over his Dynix installation. Gee I wish I had the skills to code that.

Today he’s casually mentioned that the University of Huddersfield will go live with user comments on the OPAC in the next week. Gee I wish I had the skills to code that.

But..Dave, in turn, has said “Gee I wish I had time to do that”….about….

John Blyberg…..

….. who has created a “social OPAC” interface which sits over Ann Arbor’s III Innopac library management system. It allows user rating, tagging and reviews. He’s released the code as well. And made a screencast to show how to use it.

Dave would “kill a box of cute kittens with my bare hands to be able to take on a project like this“. Well, John and Dave, I’d care for a box of cute kittens until they were grown (infinitely more of a sacrifice) to have the coding skills to do what you guys are doing.

Keep it up. Please keep sharing…and those of us with lesser skills promise to try to persuade those higher up in the food chain at our workplaces that guys like you need time and support to do what you do. We’ll even try to change things so we can care for any “free as in kittens” services you produce.