This is an wonderful article by Stephen Abram reflecting the current push towards end-user centric design of the online public access catalog (OPAC).  The next wave of PAC are geared towards user community instead of the traditional needs of LMS worker.
Even in my company’s next generated of OPAC, we’ve clearly see the need for enhanced content, RSS feed, federated/ebsco search capability, borrower’s review.  Users are not satisfied to just search for  available title and made reservation, now they want to be able to subscribe to alert for new arrivals by SMS, article availability, have editor’s review, chat with other borrowers and check their account all within the PAC.
Patron have different expectation of the virtual library, put it simple as the author.
Library will be a place that I work, I live, I play and I research.