Structured Blogging with COinS, and, Make Resolvers Better ASAP

I'd read about the "Structured Blogging [1]" approach a while back but it didn't really catch my attention until a few days ago when their new templates were released, with support for microformats.

I installed the updated wordpress templates and set about adding COinS [2] support to the book format. Got stuck in the templating syntax, but Phillip Pearson, the templates' developer, immediately wrote back [3] with an answer to my question (and see "next in thread" for the final missing piece I left out in the first message).

So. COinS for books, built right into wordpress templates. Easily added to MT templates, too. Very cool stuff. Woah... and, he *just* responded (follow the rest of the thread) that he's checked in COinS support and it will come with the next template release. Doublepluscool.

But -- you knew there would be a "but", didn't you -- this only reminds me of how lousy our resolvers must look to "outsiders". Think about it... if you weren't a librarian who'd slogged through the licensing and linking wars, how would you feel about a user interface that did this:

• You're reading something somewhere that makes you want to follow a reference link
• You click it, and your browser window jumps to the side and shrinks by 3/4
• The resulting tiny, off-to-the-side window tells you "could not find full text" but what you wanted was a book from off the shelf anyway, not a real book
• If you keep reading (and who does, if there's no obvious picture with a link anymore?) there's a link that "allows" you to search the full catalog
• The search-the-catalog link opens yet another window
• If you're lucky, you find a bib record but it doesn't tell you where the book is unless you click it and
• Hopefully it's available at a library location near you but
• Goodness forbid, if the library doesn't have the book, it acts like it's never heard of such a book and TELLS YOU NOTHING ABOUT IT
• Even though we have a gazzzillion APIs available at little-to-no cost which can indeed tell us something about it

It's terrible. Just plain terrible, and we need to fix this immediately. Maybe we could get a usability expert or two on it...