Library Blogs

Earlier this week, I had a chance to give a brown-bag session on a new API into our catalog, Mirlyn (Ex Libris's Aleph software).

At the University of Michigan Library, in partnership with Google, we have been busily scanning our collections. This opens up lots of possibilities, including an exciting one that launches today: search the full text of a book from within Mirlyn, the library's catalog.

MLibrary Labs is the University Library's test bed and playground. Here's a summary of all the tools that have been released since we launched it in September 2007.

As is well known, we are digitizing all the bound volumes in our library, including books in copyright. I don't want to address the legal issues surrounding the digitization itself, but instead discuss uses of these materials after digitization. We do not show any part of in-copyright books in MBooks, leading people to wonder why we even bother to digitize them. We can answer that question in a number of ways.

Since its launch in late February, MTagger has grown to more than 1250 tags and almost 500 users. MTagger is the U-M Library's tagging tool -- it allows you to save and label library catalog entries, digital images, or any web page so that you can find them again and share them with others.

There is an alternative way to access MBooks other than through UM's online catalog Mirlyn. You can harvest the MBooks records directly via our OAI interface. The University of Chicago has done just that, and integrated these records into their library catalog.

MBooks is a partnership between the University of Michigan and Google, Inc. to digitize the entire print collection of the University Library. The digitized collection, called MBooks, is searchable in the library catalog, Mirlyn, as well as in Google Book Search. Full-text of works that are out of copyright or in the public domain are available.