Careful readers will already know that I am a big fan of libraries. It often boggles my mind that they offer books, music, movies and more - all free for the borrowing. Makes you wonder why the RIAA hasn't recognized libraries as a threat comparable to P2P networks. But I digress.

I almost always begin my library experience by hopping onto the library's web site and searching. In recent years, I have seen library searches get substantially better. Many of the libraries I frequent now show thumbnails of the book covers on the book description page. That makes it even easier to recognize the book when I go to retrieve it.

Recently, I checked out the worst book I have ever read. I'll spare the author the embarrassment, but suffice it to say, it was a truly awful book written a few years back on e-marketing. After giving up on the book, I decided to look it up on Amazon.com and check the reviews. Sure enough, aside from the obvious and nearly ever-present shill reviews, most other readers found this book as dreadful as I did.

That made me think about how the library could create the same type of user review system. That would be very helpful to me. As I expanded this line of thinking, I began to realize that there are a number of "Amazonian" features that I'd love to see my library adopt.

I'd love to see a collaborative filtering feature that shows me something akin to: "People who checked out this book also checked out XYZ." Of course, if Amazon's patents prevent that sort of imitation, the library could add another Amazon-like feature in allowing users to suggest additions or substitutions for the current selection. That would be just the thing for me.

The libraries in this area are getting pretty tech-savvy. They even have downloadable e-books and audiobooks that you can get without even leaving your chair. Hopefully the lessons learned in book retailing will trickle down to the library customer experience before too long as well.

What other features could libraries adopt to improve customer experience?