Idaho Commission for Libraries

A friend of mine just sent me a link to Wowbrary! a new service that allows patrons to subscribe to an email digest or RSS feed of their library's newest acquisitions. What fun! It works like this: you go to the site and enter in your email address and zipcode and it pulls up a list of local libraries. I entered "83701" and was able to select from Ada, Garden City, Boise Public, Meridian and Eagle.

The institution has to sign up for the service in order for it to work, and after digging through some information on the website I saw that there is a sponsorship charge on the part of the institution though there is no charge for users. The fee ranges depending on the size of the city and starts at 500.00 upwards to a few thousand dollars for larger cities.

The service requires no staff time or expertise and works with lots of integrated library systems. A library can also include programs and other news/events on the distribution list. Basically, the service acts as a virtual "new book shelf" and allows patrons to click through and place items on hold. You can see a sample email here.

I have no experience using this service but think it is a really interesting idea and look forward to seeing how libraries use it. Has anyone else tried this before? Any thoughts?