HIT=> New book selection guides on the internet

[Mackin Book Company <mackinbk@MAIL.MR.NET>]

Hello Netters,

At last I have found time to compile all the responses I received to my
recent request.  Thank you very much to everyone who responded to my
questions regarding your use of gopher and web sites and if you'd like to
see a book selection guide on the net.  Your comments and suggestions were
all very much appreciated.

As promised, I'm posting a hit, but for brevity's sake, I've summarized
quite a bit since most of the responses were pretty similar.

I received 24 responses, all of whom said they plan on using gopher and web
sites more and more and would love to see a good selection guide on the
net.   As one person wrote, "Having a book catalog and review on line
would be great as we are so busy these days to look up indexes and book
reviews. "  Of the 24 responses the preference for gopher or web went like
this:

Prefer Gopher -12
WEB or Gopher -8
Prefer WEB -3
No preference given -1

Those people who had easy access to the WEB preferred it to Gopher, but
many people suggested that a Gopher would be a better choice since almost
everyone can access it.  The WEB is still unavailable to many schools, so
in order not to limit access, a Gopher seems like the best option for
anyone wanting to reach a school library.

However, many people assume that you cannot access the WEB if you don't
have a direct internet connection.  This is not true any longer.
Even if you have a SLIP or PPP account, you can hook up with the WEB.
Those of you who don't have WEB access yet might want to check with your
internet provider to find out how to get connected.  The WEB is
actually very easy to use once you have your browsing software in place.

We will most likely offer both a Gopher site and a WEB site so that nobody
will be left in the cold.  I promise to update everyone who responded with
our progress.  If anyone else wants info about our progress you can e-mail
me or call me with your address, and I'll be sure to add you to my mailing
list.  We are fairly bursting with ideas and hope to get cracking on this
project as soon as possible!

Some comments of interest:

"I would like to find ordering information, reviews, basic print catalog
information.  In addition, if this were a web site, I would like to see the
covers of the books, especially for K-12 books.  Bibliographies on
contemporary topics would also be nice."


"Yes, yes, yes - a book selection site on the Internet would be most
helpful.  I subscribe to many journals, but find it hard to find the time
to read them and then transfer information to my databases.  I do, however,
spend a lot of time on the Internet, and it would be easy to transfer data
on the computer."


"It would be terrific if you could include the following info: author,
title, publisher, date, ISBN number, trade price, recommended grade levels
and a capsule summary including any plus points or drawbacks."


"What I really want, and would even pay a reasonable amount to access is
listings of current titles now available with ordering information.  Should
be able to look at record by author, title, subject and dewey so we could
do some real collection development.  And comparative reviews would be
frosting on the cake.  I have used Books In Print Plus on CD, but couldn't
afford to renew the subscription, they have priced school libraries out of
the picture."

Thanks again to all of you!

Sincerely,

DeAnn Hoff
Mackin Book Company
615 Travelers Trail West
Burnsville, MN 55337
e-mail: mackinbk@mr.net
phone: 800-245-9540