The new OPACthing

The Librarything has announced that they are going to market java widgets that can be used in conjunction with commercial OPACs to provide additional information to library patrons. Tim posts on the Librarything's blog, "The paid widgets will include book recommendations, tag-based browsing, ratings, reviews and so forth." They are offering a FRBR inspired related editions widget for free. This widget uses their ISBN data to collocate related records.

It is unclear how widely it will be used, if it really will be as easy as they claim, and what it will cost. However the announcement continues a trend of third party companies (Endeca, Acquabrowser, etc.) offering to enhance library OPACs. I believe it also Librarything's first formal step into the world of traditional libraries. Tim Spaulding at Librarything once hinted that he thought they might one day compete with OCLC. Stay tuned...