Archive for August, 2006
In celebration of MLC’s upcoming Special Program Series –
The Library Rebooted, I would like to announce MLC’s newest blog,
The Library Rebooted: Unwrapped. This blog exists to promote any and all aspects of
Library 2.0. Featured guest posters include speakers at our upcoming special programs and experts in various library 2.0 technologies.
We encourage comments by our members to facilitate discussions and share ideas. Also, if you would like to post what your library is doing in regards to the Library 2.0 model, please contact Evette Atkin to receive a login and password.
MLC’s 2006/2007 special program series, The Library Rebooted kicks off on October 6th with Perceptions of User’s – MLC Annual Meeting.
August 29th, 2006
Connexion client 1.50 will be discontinued on October 1, 2006. Connexion client 1.50 users will receive an upgrade warning message each time they start the client software. This warning will continue to display each time you start the 1.50 software until you upgrade to 1.60. Until October 1, you can bypass this warning and continuing using client 1.50. As of October 1, you will not be able to log on with Connexion client 1.50.
To verify your version number, go to Help, About OCLC Connexion Client.
For more information about client 1.60 and to download the software,
click here.
Note: if you use the Web-based Connexion browser interface, you can
ignore this message. This applies only to users of the Windows-based
Connexion client software.
August 23rd, 2006
The Onion recently reported:
Members of the OCLC Online Computer Library Center’s Editorial Policy Committee, which oversees the Dewey Decimal System library classification system, were no closer Monday to assigning a definitive call number to the recently published Jim Belushi book Real Men Don’t Apologize.
“With all due respect to the author, we remain unsure how to categorize this particular work,” said committee chair Leslie Buncombe, who, despite repeated readings, still wasn’t sure if Real Men… was “an actual book.”
“What is it? Autobiography? Self-help? We can’t even tell if it’s fiction or nonfiction,” Added Buncombe: “Too bad it can’t be shelved by its ISBN number. Maybe it’s Fantasy Biography? I don’t even think there’s a code for that.” If no decision is reached within the week, librarians may be forced to shelve it in the “phantom zone” between Jenny McCarthy’s book of marriage tips and novels in which a cat helps solve a mystery.
August 22nd, 2006
A new OCLC Connexion cataloging tool lets librarians automatically harvest and create WorldCat records for digital resources. Using either Connexion client or browser, librarians just type in a URL and the Metadata Extractor captures and formats data into a bibliographic workform for Web sites as well as locally stored .htm, .html, .pdf and .doc files.
This will speed cataloging for more types of e-resources, such as electronic dissertations, theses and government documents, by reducing typing and cut-and-paste operations.
Go to the OCLC Connexion Web site for more information.
August 22nd, 2006
DiMeMa (Digital Media Management), the organization that developed and supports CONTENTdm, the leading digital management software for libraries distributed by OCLC, is now a part of the OCLC cooperative. OCLC acquired the company on August 14.
Greg Zick, founder of DiMeMa and former Professor at the University of Washington, will be Vice President of OCLC Digital Services, and the DiMeMa staff of 11 will maintain its office in Seattle, Washington.
“DiMeMa and OCLC have worked very closely for the past four years and we have enjoyed tremendous success in moving libraries into the digital age,” said Dr. Zick. “Together we will be able to reach more libraries and other organizations interested in managing and exposing their unique content to the worldwide information community.”
View news release
August 22nd, 2006
This quarterly update represents changes libraries have made to their holdings from January 1st to July 1st, 2006.All Individual Library Analyses, Group Analyses, WorldCat Comparisons, Peer Comparisons, Predefined Group Comparisons, and Authoritative List Comparisons will reflect these updates.
WorldCat Comparison for Group Subscribers
We have created WorldCat Comparisons for Group Subscribers. This comparison shows what the group as a whole owns Uniquely in WorldCat, what it shares with one other library, two other libraries, etc. For example, if eight members of a group own an item and one other library (not in the group) also owns that item it will display in the Shared by 2 column.
Continually Updated Resources Formats
We have incorporated the new Continually Updated Resources and Continually Updated Resources, Electronic formats into the service.
They are both available as Limits on the Limits screen and as row dimensions in the Analysis Results.
Conspectus Update
* Geography & Earth Sciences: added geographic Subjects for Atlases and Maps; added some additional Subjects throughout
* Physical Sciences: added more Subjects throughout
* Law: added more Subject breakdowns for the Category “Law, General” and narrowing down the Subject “Comparative Law, International Uniform Law.”
For more information, please contact Aaron Smith
August 14th, 2006
OCLC will install enhancements to CatExpress on August 13th. One of the new enhancements involves the export function. All users who have created export files via CatExpress or the Express tab (for full cataloging members) before the August 13, 2006 CatExpress installation MUST download them before August 13th. Users will not have access to these files after the install. OCLC apologizes for any inconvenience.
Beginning August 13th, CatExpress subscribers will have access to “Export file name” and “Export file type” on the Genreral>Admin>Preferences page>Export options page.
August 9th, 2006
You’ll always know the latest developments across the library community and inside the OCLC cooperative with OCLC E-mail Alerts. You can get news from any of these 12 popular library-service segments:
• Cataloging & Metadata • Collection Management
• Dewey • Digital Collections & Preservation
• eContent • Education, Leadership & Research
• Language Sets • Memberships and Reports
• Reference • Resource Sharing & Interlibrary Loan
• World Library News • WorldCat
E-mail Alerts keep you up-to-date on important trends in your areas of interest as well as relevant OCLC products and services, training classes, events and more. And you can add or delete Alerts at any time.
View lists
August 8th, 2006
On August 6, 2006 the following enhancements to WorldCat Resource Sharing were successfully installed:
**** Users can automatically log into the WorldCat administrative module from WorldCat Resource Sharing
When a user logs into WorldCat Resource Sharing, a new button appears at the top of the screen that automatically links the user from WorldCat Resource Sharing into the WorldCat Services administrative module. The administrative module opens in another session window. Users do not have to re-enter their authorization and password. Users are taken to the resource sharing landing page just as if they had logged into the administrative module directly with their resource sharing authorization/password.
****Workflow improvement for libraries working on behalf of other libraries: Constant Data (CD) persistence made optional
When requests are processed through WorldCat Resource Sharing, a default constant data (CD) record is automatically applied to requests as they’re produced. Users have the option to chose another constant data record, and that CD record is then applied to future requests until a different CD record is chosen. CD records will fill in blank fields in a request and not overwrite fields that already have data.
While this works well for the majority of our users, we’ve heard from other users that they would prefer to choose CD records individually and to not have data from a previous CD record present when a subsequent request is displayed.
With the most recent install of WorldCat Resource Sharing users now have the option of not having a default CD record applied and turning of persistence. In the administrative module, where users set up and edit CD records, there is a new field at the top where users can decide whether or not Constant Data should act persistently. Unless users make a change, Constant Data will continue to work as it does now.
Additional information about these enhancements can be found at: http://www.oclc.org/resourcesharing/support/enhancements/default.htm.
For assistance, please contact Evette Atkin.
August 8th, 2006
This site—and a downloadable WorldCat search box you can easily add to your Web site—opens the complete WorldCat database to the public, not just the smaller data subsets utilized by Open WorldCat partner sites such as Google, Yahoo! Search and others. WorldCat.org builds on the success of OCLC’s Open WorldCat Program that has elevated the visibility of library materials on the open Web since the summer of 2003.
The main attraction of the new site is the WorldCat search box. Web users can now search the entire WorldCat database with the method most familiar to them: simple keywords. As in Open WorldCat, each linked result leads to a “Find in a Library” information page. >From there, users can enter geographic information such as a zip or postal code, receive a list of nearby libraries that own the item, and link right to a library’s online catalog record to initiate circulation activity or access electronic content directly. Users can also create their own WorldCat account and add book reviews, table-of-contents information and notes to many WorldCat items, helping to personalize their library search experience.
From WorldCat.org, any Web user or organization can also easily download and install the free, WorldCat search box to their personal or commercial Web page, allowing even more people to discover library content through WorldCat. Libraries and other groups inside and outside the OCLC cooperative are encouraged to add the box to their sites. We believe that sharing the ability to search for library materials to as many other sites as possible will help increase the awareness of libraries as primary sources of reliable information and helpful personal assistance.
To try the new WorldCat search box and download the box to your own Web site, visit the site at http://worldcat.org.
August 8th, 2006
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