Jonathan, while having these thoughts your Umlaut service did come to 
mind.  If you ever have time to expand on how it could work in a wide 
open web environment, I'd love to hear it. (I know you explain below, 
but I don't know enough about link resolvers to understand what it 
really means from a short explanation. Diagrams are always welcome!)

kc

On 2/23/12 12:37 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> On 2/23/2012 2:45 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>> This links to thoughts I've had about linked data and finding a way to
>> use library holdings over the Web. Obviously, bibliographic data alone
>> is a full service: people want to get the stuff once they've found out
>> that such stuff exists. So how do we get users from the retrieval of a
>> bibliographic record to a place where they have access to the stuff?
>>
>> I see two options: the WorldCat model, where people get sent to a
>> central database where they input their zip code, or a URL-like model
>> where they get a link on retrievals that has knowledge about their
>> preferred institution and access.
>
> I think we need both of those, and mixtures between the two, and more.
>
> OCLC is trying to do the second one too. For instance with their link
> resolver redirector. But it requires link resolvers being registered,
> link resolvers working, and link resolvers working for print materials,
> etc.
>
> Of course "get a link on retrievals" begs the question of from where
> they are retrieving and who is generating this link? But in theory,
> anyone with a retrieval system could give you a link through OCLC's link
> resolver redirector. Which isn't quite fleshed out yet, but
> theoretically could then redirect you to the link resolver of your
> choice based on preferences or proximity. Except, well, it doens't work
> that well, for a variety of reasons both under and not under OCLC's
> control. But it's the sort of architecture we're talking about, I think.
>
> (Now if there was a common machine-readable response for link resolver
> type requests, an OCLC-like service could even aggregate the responses
> from _several_ "preferred institutions" on one page. Umlaut originally
> tried to do that with SFX link resolvers, but it never really went
> anywhere).
>
> Anyhow, yeah, both of those, and more. They definitely aren't mutually
> exclusive, and the sorts of technologies and metadata ecologies that are
> needed to support each one have a whole lot of overlap.
>
> Incidentally, my Umlaut software, mostly targetted at academic
> libraries, is really focused on that exact problem: "people want to get
> the stuff once they've found out that such stuff exists. So how do we
> get users from the retrieval of a bibliographic record to a place where
> they have access to the stuff? " But it's definitely not done yet, it's
> my goal with Umlaut, but there's still a lot left to do to get there.
> (Ultimately, you need some kind of LibX-type approach, browser plugin or
> javascript bookmarklet, to get people to a place where they have access
> from third parties that have absolutely no interest in collaborating on
> this plan. Amazon doesn't want to help you go anywhere other than Amazon
> to acquire a book). Definitely a work in progress, but the goal it's
> oriented to is exactly what you say. https://github.com/team-umlaut/umlaut
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>>
>> I have no idea if the latter is feasible on a true "web scale," but it
>> would be my ideal solution. We know that search engines keep track of
>> your location and tailor retrievals based on that. Could libraries get
>> into that loop?
>>
>> kc
>>
>> On 2/23/12 11:35 AM, Eoghan Ó Carragáin wrote:
>>> That's true, but since Blacklight/Vufind often sit over
>>> digital/institutional repositories as well as ILS systems& subscription
>>> resources, at least some public domain content gets found that otherwise
>>> wouldn't be. As you said, even if the item isn't available digitally,
>>> for
>>> Special Collections libraries unique materials are exposed to potential
>>> researchers who'd never have known about them.
>>> Eoghan
>>>
>>> On 23 February 2012 19:25, Sean Hannan<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's hard to say. Going off of the numbers that I have, I'd say that
>>>> they
>>>> do
>>>> find what they are looking for, but they unless they are a JHU
>>>> affiliate,
>>>> they are unable to access it.
>>>>
>>>> Our bounce rate for Google searches is 76%. Which is not necessarily
>>>> bad,
>>>> because we put a lot of information on our item record pages--we
>>>> don't make
>>>> you dig for anything.
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, 9% of visits coming to us through Google searches
>>>> are
>>>> return visits. To me, that says that the other 91% are not JHU
>>>> affiliates,
>>>> and that's 91% of Google searchers that won't have access to materials.
>>>>
>>>> I know from monitoring our feedback form, we have gotten in increase in
>>>> requests from far flung places for access to things we have in special
>>>> collections from non-affiliates.
>>>>
>>>> So, we get lots of exposure via searches, but due to the nature of how
>>>> libraries work with subscriptions, licensing, membership and such,
>>>> we close
>>>> lots of doors once they get there.
>>>>
>>>> -Sean
>>>>
>>>> On 2/23/12 1:55 PM, "Schneider, Wayne"<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This is really interesting. Do you have evidence (anecdotally or
>>>>> otherwise) that the people coming to you via search engines found what
>>>>> they were looking for? Sorry, I don't know exactly how to phrase this.
>>>>> To put it another way - are your patrons finding you this way?
>>>>>
>>>>> wayne
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>>>> Behalf Of
>>>>> Sean Hannan
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 12:37 PM
>>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Local catalog records and Google, Bing, Yahoo!
>>>>>
>>>>> Our Blacklight-powered catalog (https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/)
>>>>> comes
>>>>> up a lot in google search results (try gil scott heron circle of
>>>>> stone).
>>>>>
>>>>> Some numbers:
>>>>>
>>>>> 59% of our total catalog traffic comes from google searches 0.04%
>>>>> of our
>>>>> total catalog traffic comes from yahoo searches 0.03% of our total
>>>>> catalog traffic comes from bing searches
>>>>>
>>>>> For context, 32.96% of our total catalog traffic is direct traffic and
>>>>> referrals from all of the library websites combined.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anecdotally, it would appear that bing (and bing-using yahoo) seem to
>>>>> drastically play down catalog records in their results. We're not
>>>>> doing
>>>>> anything to favor a particular search engine; we have a completely
>>>>> open
>>>>> robots.txt file.
>>>>>
>>>>> Google regularly indexes our catalog. Every couple days or so. I
>>>>> haven't
>>>>> checked in awhile.
>>>>>
>>>>> We're not doing any fancy SEO here (though, I'd like to implement some
>>>>> of the microdata stuff). It's just a function of how the site
>>>>> works. We
>>>>> link a lot of our catalog results to further searches (clicking on an
>>>>> author name takes you to an author search with that name, etc). Google
>>>>> *loves* that type of intertextual website linking (see also:
>>>>> Wikipedia).
>>>>> We also have stable URLs. Search URLs will always return searches with
>>>>> those parameters, item URLs are based on an ID that does not change.
>>>>>
>>>>> All of that good stuff doesn't help us with bing, though. ...But
>>>>> I'm not
>>>>> really concerned with remedying that, right this moment.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Sean
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2/23/12 12:37 PM, "[log in to unmask]"
>>>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> First of all, I'm going to say I know little in this area. I've done
>>>>>> some preliminary research about search indexing (Google's) and
>>>>>> investigated a few OPAC robot.txt files. Now to my questions:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Can someone explain to me or point me to research as to why local
>>>>>> library catalog records do not show up in Google, Bing, or Yahoo!
>>>>> search
>>>>>> results?
>>>>>> - Is there a general prohibition by libraries for search engines to
>>>>>> crawl their public records?
>>>>>> - Do the search engines not index these records actively?
>>>>>> - Is it a matter of SEO/promoted results?
>>>>>> - Is it because some systems don't mint URLs for each record?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I haven't seen a lot of discussion about this recently and I know
>>>>>> Jason Ranallo has done a lot of work in this area and gave a great
>>>>>> talk at code4lib Seattle on microdata/Schema.org, so I figured this
>>>>>> could be part of that continuing conversation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I look forward to being educated by you all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tod
>>>>
>>

-- 
Karen Coyle
[log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet