Innovative Interfaces and RSS… Coming [Not] Soon [Enough]

[Sorry for the long gap between postings — I was on vacation.]
RSS is coming to Innovative Interfaces library management system. The Shifted Librarian highlighted this news release late last week, noting that Innovative makes a mention of RSS on page 8 of their June 2005 INN-Touch newsletter:

Innovative will use RSS to support one-to-many communication, but in Release 2006 there will also be one-to-one support. Patrons will be able to get RSS messages as part of their My Millennium suite of personalization features. Timely messages such as “Materials due tomorrow” or “New item on hold shelf for you” will let patrons know about their interactions with the library more quickly than ever before. […]
“Our users are familiar with RSS feeds as they stay current with the news or their special interest groups and it seems to us that the library should be part of that information stream,” says [Yale University Law School’s] Associate Director for Technical Services Mary Jane Kelsey. “The library will begin by providing time-sensitive patron notices in an RSS feed so our busy faculty and students can see the status of holds, recalls, and overdue materials at a higher level than their patron record. They will also have the option to integrate the library’s feed into the Law School portal or subscribe with a local RSS reader.”

Since my library uses Innovative, I’m particularly excited by this announcement. Kudos to Innovative!

Talis ILS Working on RSS

Talis, makers of an integrated library system (what we’re calling the library catalog these days), are working on building RSS into their product. A brief white paper on their site outlines the uses they see for RSS as a patron communication tool. They are also looking at RSS as a simple way to pass information about, for example, new acquisitions, from the main catalog to local systems. (Via Tate’s Space.)