But the thing about OPAC’s and the user generated views on them is that it is really new. Although some OPAC’s now have more information in the record, most do not. I’m sure that will change as older versions of them get phased out and are replaced.

Amazon has captured a world-wide audience, but they have been doing that for 15 years and libraries only recently on board. Libraries are a little behind in that respect and Amazon has over a decade of accumulated user data. I think that they do have a value, but libraries will have to do a lot to catch up with them.

I was just speaking with a member of staff from Ann Arbor District Library and this person noted that the value of the reviews they have on their OPAC vs. Amazon reviews is that their reviews are local; they are the opinions of members of the community while Amazon is a more global opinion.

SOPAC is an open source project that is freely available for libraries to use but so far only three libraries are doing so. When Darien moved over to SOPAC there were not as many community reviews as in Ann Arbor so I think some thought that such a system could only work in a community like Ann Arbor. However, a quick look over at Palos Verdes Library System shows a growing number of reviews beginning to accumulate.

I enjoy your article looking at the difference between librarian and user reviews but I am not quite sure that the OPAC is inherently less valuable than Amazon. I think with a good system in place, local community reviews deliver a unique value for OPACs that Amazon does not match.