Blackboard, Schmackboard

I'll be spending most of today with sales reps from Blackboard as they try to sell us the content component of their system. For my part, I only care about two things:

1. There must be a system to force users entering content items to select certain identifying tags for their content (in our case, things like: name of school, item type, and a few keywords from a structed taxonomy). And, we the library have to be able to determine what those tags are--that is, just having a few keyword fields won't cut it. Really, what's the point of putting material into a system if you can't get it back out?

And, as I mused in yesterday's post (not gonna link it as you can just scan down, really, you can), vendor search leaves a lot to be desired. Until Endeavor contracts with Google (Elsevier and Google together? Oh, dear, oh dear!), we've got to tag the content to make up for the lack.

As a side note, I almost never say "index" or "catalog" anymore because peoples' eyes glaze over, but "tagging" is all the rage. Whatever--the terms all map to the same concept. (That's a little cataloging joke for those of you who missed it.)

2. If we go with this system, then we also have to purchase the Endeavor/enCompass addon product that would make the content available through our federated search service. Federated search of useful local content is frankly a pipe dream right now, but it is one I nonetheless keep having.

So, we'll see what the sales reps have to say. Our head of Teaching and Learning Technology is also interested in Angel Learning as well as some other things, so the BlackBoard reps had best be on their game.