This week, as you know if you read other library blogs, I was surfing the Seattle Public Library’s site while trying to get inspired for website design ideas, and came across a press release regarding RSS and SPL’s catalogue. Alas, the RSS feed turned out to be another hack.

What I’ve sometimes found frustrating when dealing with software vendors, in any field, is the time it takes from “can this be done” to when a feature is added to the product. Many vendors have a wishlist for “the next version of the product”, whenever that may be. It could be 6 months away, it could be years. All the same, you’ll need to upgrade to get access to that feature. Often it’s justified, after all they want people to have a reason to upgrade to the new version. But when features are looking more like essentials, like RSS is this year, how can that timeframe and way of working be changed? Does the existance of 3rd party tools like ELF and Library Lookup help or hinder the patron in the long run, especially given the privacy concerns of services like ELF which use library data, but don’t have to abide by library rules?