Problematical library use. How to cite Boston Public Library catalog entries with the URL.
By the zak - Tue, 01/29/2008 - 3:12am.
Boston Public Library President Bernard A. Margolis
Massachusetts
http://bpl.org/general/seniorstaff.htm
Dear Bernard A. Margolis,
Problematical library use.
Please arrange it so that permanent URLs for entries in the BPL catalog at http://bpl.org
can be referred to for letting other library users/customers/consumers
know about a book's catalog entry.
Apparently the catalog is not setup properly for convenient
referring to an entry by a permanent URL.
An example
For the book title
Symbols of Power Napoleon
it appears the URL is
a) too long
b) not permanent
c) cannot be shortened
d) cannot be used with http://tinyurl.com
| 
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Session vars
I suspect the site uses an urlencoded session variable to track a user's session. This is sometimes preferable to using cookies but does result in messy URLs.
Depending on how the site is constructed that could be a very simple-- or a very difficult-- change to make. I suspect had it been easy it would already have been done.
Problematical library use. How to cite BPL catalog URLs.
Thank you!
A kludge.
Not yet ruling out a kludge for a way of citing
Boston Public Library catalog entries' URLs, see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenURL
http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=9500
It's not a kludge
It's a mandate. A mandate against storing information (cookies) on an end-user's machine. There is only two ways to do it: cookies or passing info via URL (either GET or POST). If you want to be able to log in, reserve a book, renew a book, whatever, it's the only way to do it without a cookie.
I'd rate this a 6
With 1 being complete gibberish and 10 being "Hey, actually an interesting post, written in English."
You address a legitimate issue, sort of in English. Points off for the "Problematical library use," however - it's a real turnoff for people who will stop reading after those three words and never get to your actual point.
With a little URL tweaking
The only part of the URL that you need is uri=link=____. So, for instance, you can shorten the link for Symbols of Power Napoleon to:
http://catalog.mbln.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=link=3100019~!5088299~!3100001~!3100002
Minuteman Library Network does it better
The Minuteman Library Network, which includes Cambridge, Somerville, and most suburbs of Boston, does it right. At the bottom of each listing you'll find something like this:
Permanent URL for this catalog record: http://library.minlib.net/record=b2346594
Browsing feature motion picture DVDs at public libraries.
Thank you folks!
A sorting workaround. Library catalogs' sorting features.
How do you search the minuteman library network catalog
http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/catalog/
for categories of feature motion picture DVDs that are not currently checked out?... either on the shelves, in the sorting, the shelving, or the processing stage.
Feature motion picture DVDs are arranged for searching by title but not by categories on the shelves at our minuteman library network cambridge public library.
URL
Hooey
http://catalog.mbln.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=link=3100019~!5088299~!3100001~!3100002
"Too long" is subjective. It's no longer than an amazon.com link.
It is permanent.
It has been shortened.
The Tiny URL is http://tinyurl.com/3aj632
Margolis is gone.
And where did you get that URL?
Users shouldn't have to know how to edit URLs in order to make permanent links. That's the point Don was trying to make. Look at the Minuteman catalog to see a good way to do this.
Are you sure?
The original poster stated the book's URL on the BPL's site is:
a) too long
b) not permanent
c) cannot be shortened
d) cannot be used with http://tinyurl.com
In my post I showed that:
a) it can be shortened
b) once you remove the session variables, it is permanent
c) again, can be shortened
d) it now can be used with http://tinyurl.com
Of course, the BPL should make permanent links on their site. I was simply providing a workaround, not a solution.
Yes, but why should any user have to do that?
Nobody who isn't a computer geek should have to understand the innards of a URL query string or how to remove pieces of it. Don is correct in his complaint.
the url isn't nearly as
the url isn't nearly as difficult to read as this post
ba da bing
Yeah, let's put the Zak in charge of user friendliness issues.