April 26, 2024

Stakeholders Strive to Define Standards for Web-Scale Discovery Systems

There is great hope that these rapidly maturing discovery products will not only promote information literacy strategies but also deliver what metasearch (or federated search) has failed to achieve—a Google-like interface that provides a fast, single point of entry to an institution’s relevant and vetted scholarly content. However, at the moment, even as libraries are struggling to reestablish themselves as a compelling place to start research, the three constituencies—libraries, content providers, and discovery service vendors—cannot even agree on a common vocabulary to describe what they do.

Grant To Support OCLC WebJunction For Five Years

A $4.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the ongoing operations of library resource and training center WebJunction, OCLC has announced. Founded in 2002 and launched the following year with grant funding from the Gates Foundation, WebJunction’s training resources, programs, and content have since been used by staff in almost 70 percent of U.S. libraries, and have helped more than 70,000 library staff members enhance their job skills, according to OCLC.

EBSCO Announces New Partnerships, Collections

EBSCO Publishing last week announced new or expanded partnership agreements with OCLC, SirsiDynix, and Innovative Interfaces that will enhance discovery and offer easier access to many databases, e-journals and other content.

Moving Beyond the NetLibrary Legacy, EBSCO Reshapes Its Ebook Platform

When EBSCO acquired NetLibrary from OCLC in March 2010, it obtained a fully formed ebook platform that already had a large collection of about 200,000 ebooks from 500 publishers available in 17,000 sites worldwide. The challenge was to smooth out this platform, now known as Ebooks on EBSCOhost, so that it could migrate to the EBSCO interface and there be remade.

Highlights of Highpoint (Public and University Library)

The morning after Charlotte we drove over to Highpoint and visited both the University and Public Libraries. We took way too many videos than we could ever have time to edit and publish but these are some of our favorites. High Point Public library This library has a great teen space called the Teen Garage. […]

Michael Lambert, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, and SMCL

I (PC Sweeney) Interviewed my new deputy director who just happens to come from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  Before going to Charlotte, he worked in San Mateo County Library as the manager of the library branch that I am now the manager of.  He spent about 5 years in Charlotte so he knows all about […]