Over at comic book resources, more talk about a searchable catalog for comic book stores from Augie De Blieck and Steven Grant. I think it is semi-amusing that people are discussing what this theoretical catalog should do, and no one has asked a librarian who would actually do this stuff all day long.

Basically one reason for this catalog is reader’s advisory, since comic book store owners tend to not do a great job reccomending titles for readers. Librarians do reader’s advisory all the time.

People want an e-mail alerting service when a new comic that fits a user’s profile is about to come out — sounds like SDI (selective dissemination of information) which library databases have been doing for a long time.

It is supposed to be a shared resource pooled among comic book stores, libraries work together in consortia often.

Personally, although the idea is nice in theory, I think it would be tricky to set up and maintain, even with the limited size of the database. You’d have to have someone cataloging every week’s new releases. You would have to have some sort of standardized format for the records. Even if you were using some of the open source systems available, I’d guess that there would be a ton of customization involved.

Oh well, I’m not a cataloger and it is too early in the morning for me to even attempt to think like one : )