OpenLibraryMap

Why?

Libraries (I'm thinking of university libraries, but I'm sure there is more general demand too) always have a requirement for maps. When you look up a book in the catalogue, you hope to see a map pointing out where it is on the shelves. Or you want to find books on history, so you need to know where the history section is.

Problems:

• There seems to be no standard software solution for this
• Where there is a particular solution, the maps are probably out of date
• How to handle recording shelving positions? Make part of shelving procedure?

Requirements

• Zoomable: needs to display both sections and locations of particular shelves
• Easy to update by librarians without having to get the buildings manager to supply detailed specs each time there are physical moves
• Ideally would link to outside world and also show where the library itself is
• Needs to integrate with database with locations of holdings
• Needs to handle multiple points with same co-ordinates (ie more than one floor)

How

Maybe...

• Will gps work well enough indoors to get locations on walk round shelves?
• Enter layout using josm
• Run osm server with database including only campus and libraries
• Two renderers: standard one for outside, customised for inside library
• How to integrate with search? How does current search work? Need to find out..
• Move as much of the custom stuff as possible into openlayers/js

Maybe...

• Too much work to justify for one library
• Provide general service to libraries