Archive for April, 2010
Join us for WorldCat Resource Sharing Web seminars!
Do you want to accomplish routine interlibrary loan tasks efficiently while saving library money? Would you like to learn some tips and tricks that can benefit your resource sharing workflows? Join us for a series of webinars in which resource sharing librarians share their best practices. OCLC Web seminars are no-cost, live presentations viewable via the Web with audio provided by WebEx.
The first in this series is a focus on Direct Request. Merle Slyhoff, Collection Development & Resource Sharing Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania will share her experience and tips on how she makes this feature work hard so she doesn’t have to.
Direct Request lets a user place a request directly from an online citation. That request can then bypass staff review and enter the WorldCat Resource Sharing system directly. Your Direct Request profile sets the criteria that determine if requests are manually processed or automatically sent to an eligible supplier, and whether sharing is available for items you already own.
Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET
Learn more & sign up today!
If you or someone you know would like to share some practical examples at one of these webinars, please contact Tony Melvyn. We’d love to hear from you!
More information about WorldCat Resource Sharing: http://www.oclc.org/info/ResourceSharing/
April 30th, 2010
OCLC Global Council assembles for first meeting under new governance structure
Delegates discuss shared future, focus of the cooperative
DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, April 21, 2010—The new OCLC Global Council is meeting for the first time this week in Dublin, Ohio, to discuss strategy and focus of the global library cooperative. Delegates from around the world are hearing reports from senior leadership and participating in discussions about the focus and shared future of the cooperative.
Jan Ison, Global Council President and Executive Director, Lincoln Trail Libraries System, welcomed delegates Monday to the first meeting since OCLC governance changed from a single Members Council to a Global Council and three regional councils—Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Global Council comprises member delegates elected by the Regional Councils and serves as a key strategic discussion forum and communication link between member libraries, Regional Councils and OCLC management and staff.
Several items on the meeting agenda were moved from late Monday to early Tuesday to accommodate some delegates whose flights were delayed or cancelled due to disruptions in air travel caused by the volcano eruptions in Iceland. Many are participating in the four-day meeting via streamed live video on the Web.
Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, spoke to Council about shared values of the OCLC cooperative. He noted that OCLC’s present governance structure reflects some 40 years of libraries working together. Librarians from 17 countries are now serving on the Global Council, and collectively OCLC represents libraries and librarians in 171 countries.
Mr. Alford began his presentation by displaying the OCLC charter that states, in part, that OCLC was formed “to promote the evolution of library use, of libraries themselves, and of librarianship, and to provide processes and products for the benefit of library users and libraries.”
“I believe that a common set of broad objectives, as outlined in OCLC’s charter, is necessary to our shared future,” said Mr. Alford. “I know that the Board of Trustees and management are dedicated to pursuing these purposes. As I have said before, every decision we make is informed by those public purposes and the strengthening of libraries.”
Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, provided an update of OCLC’s activities in his President’s Report. “I can sum up our strategic plan by saying that we are building Web-scale for libraries,” he said. “We are building Web-scale services to help move libraries to a new level of automation, computerization and cooperation.”
Mr. Jordan said that technology is at a point where libraries can seriously consider moving library operations “from the box to the cloud.” In this model, libraries would use the same hardware and services, subscribing to network-level integration of a variety of services that go beyond the traditional ILS.
Rick Schwieterman, OCLC Executive Vice President and CFO, provided a financial update to Council. He presented a preliminary look at fiscal year 2010, which ends June 30, with total revenue estimated at $230 million, which includes revenue of $25 million from operations that were sold during the year—including NetLibrary, FirstSearch databases and the Preservation Service Center. This compared to total revenue of $240.5 for fiscal 2009.
He discussed OCLC’s recent sale of NetLibrary to EBSCO and the transition of FirstSearch third-party licensed content to EBSCO and H.W. Wilson, and the shift in focus these moves represent—from hosting and reselling content to building WorldCat out as a platform that libraries can use to manage and provide access to their entire collection. Mr. Schwieterman said the estimated loss from operations for fiscal 2010 is approximately $8 million before non-recurring adjustments and realized portfolio gains from the investment fund. This portfolio also currently pays libraries in North America 4 percent on funds deposited in advance with OCLC for services. Mr. Schwieterman reported that unbudgeted realized portfolio gains stand at $8.8 million through March 31, 2010, and estimated gain on sales of discontinued operations are expected to be approximately $22.6 million.
“We are going to use the proceeds of the divestiture of NetLibrary and the Preservation Service Center to pay down debt and accelerate development of our new services,” said Mr. Schwieterman. “We are focusing future investments of the cooperative in the most strategic service areas for members, as well as holding the line on pricing.”
Mr. Schwieterman noted that OCLC will hold prices flat in the United States on all WorldCat and WorldCat platform services for a second consecutive year, through June 2011. “We are focusing on managing costs for our members in these challenging economic times. The operating loss is the result of holding prices flat and the strategic investment in service areas,” he said.
Mr. Schwieterman said OCLC’s financial position remains strong with the investment portfolio at approximately $170 million as of March 31, 2010. OCLC has total assets of $372 million and member equity of $207 million as of March 31, 2010.
Global Council also participated in a panel discussion on Record Use Policy, Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategies, Membership and Values. Panel participants included Jennifer Younger, Co-Chair of the Record Use Policy Council and Edward H. Arnold Director of Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame; Bruce Newell, OCLC Board Member, Membership Committee Chair and retired Director, Montana Library Network; John Helmer, Chair, Cost Sharing and Pricing Strategies Task Force and Executive Director, Orbis Cascade Alliance; Jan Ison, Values Task Force; and moderator, George Needham, OCLC Vice President, Global and Regional Councils.
The Global Council will also hear reports from each of the three Regional Council chairs: Patrick Wilkinson, Chair, Americas Regional Council, and Director, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Forrest R. Polk Library; ChewLeng Beh, Chair, Asia Pacific Regional Council, and Senior Director Library & Professional Services and Director of SILAS, National Library Board, Singapore; and Berndt Dugall, Chair, EMEA Regional Council, and Direktor/Librarian, Universität Frankfurt, Universitätsbibliothek Johann Senckenbenberg.
The OCLC Global Council meeting will continue through April 22 and is being streamed live at http://www.oclc.org/livefeed/
About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 171 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.
Certain statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve various important assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements because of various factors and possible events.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and OCLC undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date on which the statement is made to reflect unanticipated events. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us or any person acting on behalf of the organization are qualified by the cautionary statements in this section.
OCLC, WorldCat and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.
April 28th, 2010
OCLC/Library Journal Online Symposium on Mobile to be held May 20, 2010
The future of information services and mobile technology is tightly intertwined. That’s why OCLC and Library Journal have come together to present a free online symposium on the future of mobile on Thursday, May 20 from 1-4 pm ET.
- How will better connection speeds affect services and functions?
- What will the rise of the smartphone mean to personal computing?
- How will upcoming mobile trends impact your library, your users, and our culture?
Join our panel of mobile industry experts and librarians and find out. There’s no travel, no cost. Just insight.
Register for the OCLC/Library Journal Online Symposium about mobile today at www.oclc.org/innovation.
April 28th, 2010
James G. Neal elected to OCLC Board of Trustees
DUBLIN, Ohio, April 20, 2010—James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, has been elected to the OCLC Board of Trustees.
A librarian for more than 35 years, Mr. Neal served as the Dean of University Libraries at Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, and held administrative positions in the libraries at Penn State, Notre Dame, and the City University of New York before his appointment at Columbia.
He is currently Chair of the ALA Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC) and has served on the Council and Executive Board of the American Library Association. He has served on the Board and as President of the Association of Research Libraries, on the Board and as Chair of the Research Libraries Group (RLG), and as Chair of the RLG Programs Committee of the OCLC Board.
Mr. Neal has also served on the Board and as Chair of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), and on the Board and as Treasurer of the Freedom to Read Foundation. He brings to the OCLC Board extensive experience and expertise in scholarly communication, including service as Chair of the Scholarly Publication and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and in copyright, including membership on the Library of Congress Section 108 Study Group.
As Chair of RLG, Mr. Neal played a leading role with Betsy Wilson, Dean of University Libraries, University of Washington and then-Chair of the OCLC Board, in the merger of RLG and OCLC in 2006. A distinguished librarian, Mr. Neal’s accolades include 1997 Academic Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the 2007 ALA Hugh Atkinson Memorial Award and the 2009 ALA Melvil Dewey Medal.
Mr. Neal was elected to a four-year term by the OCLC Board of Trustees on April 19.
The OCLC Board of Trustees is made up of 13 to 17 members elected by OCLC Global Council and by the Board itself. The President of OCLC also serves on the Board. With the election of Mr. Neal, 10 of the 16 trustees currently serving on the Board are librarians.
The OCLC Global Council is expected to elect another member to the Board of Trustees on April 22.
About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 171 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.
OCLC, WorldCat and WorldCat.org are trademarks/servicemarks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.
April 28th, 2010
The current economic environment is impacting public library budgets and library usage is increasing. This two-page report looks at the role libraries play in providing assistance to job-seekers and support for small businesses.
Download “How Libraries Stack Up: 2010″ for information that may prove useful to you as you develop budget proposals and discuss the value of public library services. The report includes statistics on:
- Americans receiving job-seeking help and career assistance at public libraries
- Libraries as a resource for small businesses
- The prevalence and scope of library activity in the United States
- Libraries as providers of free services to the community such as Wi-Fi access, technology training and meeting rooms
- Comparisons of library activities to various retail and entertainment businesses
Download the report and learn more ››
April 13th, 2010
This month, four collections from the CONTENTdm Collection of Collections are featured on the OCLC Web site. The featured collections for April are The Southern: Florida Southern College’s Student Newspaper, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Carver-VCU Partnership Oral History Collection, and H. L. Bolley Photograph Collection.
Included in the collection information below is a link to each organization’s record, if available, in the OCLC WorldCat Registry. OCLC’s WorldCat Registry allows libraries worldwide to manage and organize their data for vendors and third parties by creating and maintaining a comprehensive institutional profile in a single, Web-accessible location.
The Southern: Florida Southern College’s Student Newspaper – http://archives.flsouthern.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/Southern
[WorldCat Registry] Florida Southern College – http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions/596
This collection contains issues of The Southern newspaper, Florida Southern College’s student newspaper, from 1908 to the present. Newspapers published during the construction of the Child of the Sun structures (1935-1959), designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, were cataloged first. Note: Some issues are lost.
Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) – http://twudigital.cdmhost.com/cdm4/index_p214coll2.php?CISOROOT=/p214coll2
[WorldCat Registry] Texas Woman’s University – http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions/2944
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) Collection represents the official archive of the post-war organization of the WASP of World War II, donated to Texas Woman’s University in 1992 and added to by members who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment, and the meshing of those two organizations to create the WASP. The collection includes over 300 oral histories, 3,000 images, and over 300 separate collections of manuscripts, clothing and textiles, and artifacts.
Carver-VCU Partnership Oral History Collection – http://dig.library.vcu.edu/cdm4/index_car.php?CISOROOT=%2Fcar
[WorldCat Registry] Virginia Commonwealth University – http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions/113670
These 15 oral history interviews deal with the history and culture of Carver, a primarily working class African American neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, just north of VCU’s Monroe Park campus. The interviews were originally recorded in 2000 as part of a grant funded project described as a “Living Newspaper.”
H. L. Bolley Photograph Collection - http://library.ndsu.edu/digital/bolley-photograph-collection/
[WorldCat Registry] North Dakota State University, Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives – http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions/2205
The H. L. Bolley Photograph Collection consists of lantern slides taken by Professor Henry Luke Bolley, Dean of Biology and Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology at North Dakota Agricultural College. Most of these images were taken in 1903, when the College and the United States Department of Agriculture funded a trip to allow Bolley to study the chief flax growing areas in Holland, Belgium, Northern Germany, and Russia.
April 9th, 2010
As part of a multi-phase effort to make the Batch Processing service easier to use and more efficient, additional enhancements have been made to the service. In January 2010, standard automated processing and OCLC Online Service Center (OSC) ordering were expanded to include many types of single-institution Batch Processing projects. The April 2010 enhancements include expanding OSC ordering to include OCLC-MARC output and group batchload projects. The April enhancements are part of a series of enhancements to be completed over the next several months.
To assist users in the ordering process, a tutorial and an ordering checklist are available:
How to Order Batch Processing Services
Batchload Order Checklist for Bibliographic Record Projects
April 2010 enhancements
- OSC ordering is now available for the following bibliographic record projects:
- Projects ordered with OCLC-MARC output
- Group batchload projects
- Users may specify which qualifiers to use for OCLC Control number matching
- The ability to request information about branch level scoping for WorldCat Local projects
Multiply the efficiency and effectiveness of many OCLC Products and Services
Accurate, up-to-date holdings information multiplies the efficiency and effectiveness of many OCLC products and services including:
- WorldCat Local – Use local holdings data to qualify local searching by branch or collection and enrich record displays for serials with item-specific data
- WorldCat.org – Web access to items available in libraries
- WorldCat Resource Sharing – Better visibility and accuracy of shared resources to lending libraries and library users
- WorldCat Cataloging – Your library participates more fully in the worldwide library community
- WorldCat Collection Analysis – A more complete view of the collection aids collection development decisions
Additional enhancements to the service are planned and will be announced as they become available.
OCLC Batch Processing service uses advanced technology and expert analysis to assist OCLC members to synchronize holdings in WorldCat. In 2009, 49 million new records were added to WorldCat by the Batch Processing service from individual library collections and national library catalogs. Batch Processing takes catalog records from library local systems and integrates the information into WorldCat. WorldCat connects local library catalogs, giving library users all over the world a portal to local, regional, national and global library resources.
More information
For more information, visit Batch Processing on the Web or contact OCLC Customer Support at support@oclc.org.
April 9th, 2010
French records further enrich WorldCat as global resource
Now more than 16.3 million French language records in WorldCat
PARIS, April 7, 2010—There are now more than 16.3 million French records in WorldCat, following completion of batchloading projects from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Système Universitaire de documentation (Sudoc), and the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (BM Lyon).
In 2009, the BnF and ABES, the agency that manages the Sudoc database for French universities, signed an agreement with OCLC to load their records and holdings information into WorldCat. OCLC then processed more than 8.8 million records for BnF and over 7.9 million records for ABES. The Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, the second largest public library in France, contributed more than 1.3 million records to WorldCat.
With these projects complete, there are now more than 16.3 million French-language records in WorldCat. Just as the total number of WorldCat records has grown substantially in recent years to 175 million, the percentage of French-language records has also increased from 6.2 percent in 2007 to 9.6 percent in 2010.
“By agreeing to join WorldCat through Sudoc, French academic libraries show that national choices are compatible with an international strategy,” said Raymond Bérard, Director of ABES. “We gain visibility through WorldCat while working on a national cataloguing platform based on CBS (metadata management system). ABES is confident that working more closely with other libraries inside the OCLC cooperative will benefit the French library community as well as other libraries in Europe and beyond.”
In addition to the more academically focused content of the Sudoc libraries, the BnF and BM Lyon have contributed an extensive quantity of French content to WorldCat of a more diverse, general, cultural, and historical nature. As keeper of five centuries of cultural heritage, the Bibliothèque nationale de France collects, catalogues, preserves, and enriches this national heritage via legal deposit and acquisitions.
The Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon offers extensive collections for wide audiences. A dynamic public library, it was founded by the City of Lyon in the 16th century as the library of its renowned Collège de la Trinité and became widely open to the public in 1765, 24 years before the French Revolution, when it was transformed into a repository for all local collections. It therefore encompasses 15 centuries of knowledge starting with the Merovingian times. Its printed heritage is worthy of the city’s role as a major centre of printing in the Renaissance.
“We think that it is a major asset for our public library to be visible in WorldCat,” said Patrick Bazin, Library Director at the BM Lyon. “Not just for the more common types of materials, but especially because more than half of our 3 million documents are rare materials, either books or visual and special collections.”
WorldCat is a global network of library-management and user-facing services built upon cooperatively-maintained databases of bibliographic and institutional metadata. WorldCat enhances productivity across the full range of library workflows—from cataloging to resource sharing to discovery and delivery—by intelligently reusing contributed data, and makes library resources more visible on the Internet by distributing data across a growing number of partner services and Web technologies.
Watch WorldCat grow at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/newgrow.htm
About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 171 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve, and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians, and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract, and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.
OCLC, WorldCat and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
CBS is a trademark/service mark of OCLC EMEA, B.V.
Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.
April 8th, 2010
OCLC adding records to WorldCat for Google Books Library Project and HathiTrust Digital Library collections
Maximizing the visibility and value of libraries’ full collections
DUBLIN, Ohio, April 5, 2010—OCLC is adding records to WorldCat that represent digitized books from the Google Books Library Project and the HathiTrust Digital Library to provide greater access to and increased visibility of these rich digitized collections.
OCLC is working with libraries, Google, and the HathiTrust to derive new MARC records that represent these digital collections based on the rich collection of print records contributed to WorldCat by the OCLC membership over the last 40 years. Searchers will begin seeing these records in WorldCat immediately. OCLC will continue to add records for these collections to WorldCat on an ongoing basis.
WorldCat searchers will be able to locate digitized books from these collections and link to the associated book landing page, and in some cases can access the full text of eBooks available through these significant initiatives.
“As part of its mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful, Google is excited to be surfacing its digitized books through WorldCat,” said Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager, Google Books. “We’ve scanned over 12 million books to date and look forward to the time when every book in the world is discoverable online. Our partnership with OCLC is an important step toward that goal.”
“HathiTrust is enthusiastic about the partnership with OCLC to build our catalog,” said John Wilkin, Executive Director of the HathiTrust. “Simultaneously, HathiTrust is striving for greater comprehensiveness in its digital collection, while increasing our attention to coordinating the building of the digital collection with management of our associated print collections. The ability to situate our holdings in the world’s most comprehensive and reliable catalog of library materials is a tremendous boon in those endeavors.”
As a digital repository for the nation’s great research libraries, the HathiTrust Digital Library brings together the immense collections of partner institutions. HathiTrust was conceived as a collaboration of the 13 universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California system to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections. More about HathiTrust is at www.hathitrust.org/.
OCLC and the HathiTrust are working together to implement a public interface for the HathiTrust catalog through a WorldCat Local interface, to be introduced later this year.
“OCLC continues to work with libraries, publishers, and other trusted partners to connect Web information seekers to the rich collections held in libraries through WorldCat,” said Chip Nilges, Vice President, Business Development, OCLC. “WorldCat records from the Google Books Library Project and the HathiTrust Digital Library represent valuable digitized content users can discover at the point of need, through the Web. OCLC is committed to exploring new ways to maximize the visibility and value of libraries’ full collections—print, electronic and digital collections.”
OCLC, WorldCat, WorldCat Local and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.
April 8th, 2010
