April 27, 2024

OCLC Introduces WorldCat Discovery Services

By on January 31, 2014
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OCLC on January 22 announced WorldCat Discovery Services (WDS), a suite of cloud-based applications that combines FirstSearch and WorldCat Local. Beginning in March, the suite will offer FirstSearch subscribers access to a central index that represents nearly 2,000 e-content collections containing articles, ebooks, and other content from providers including EBSCO, Gale, and ProQuest. In total, WDS will enable the discovery of 1.3 billion electronic, digital, and physical resources in libraries around the world, using a single search.

Filed Under: Discovery, Featured Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Librarypedia: The Future of Libraries and Wikipedia

By Jake Orlowitz and Patrick Earley on January 25, 2014
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The Wikipedia Library is an open research hub started in 2010 when Credo Reference donated 500 free research accounts to Wikipedia’s most active editors. Partnerships with HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, and the Cochrane Library followed. Now, the Wikipedia Library is developing into a portal to connect editors with libraries, open access resources, paywalled databases, digital reference tools, and research experts. Two of the project’s leaders discuss the potential for collaboration between libraries and Wikipedia, as well as the new Visiting Scholars pilot program.

Filed Under: Discovery, Featured, Organization and Staffing Tagged With: , , , , ,

OCLC Launches Library Spotlight, Focuses on Power of Syndication

By on April 25, 2013
OCLC Library Spotlight

OCLC recently launched Library Spotlight, a new, free service that uses data from the WorldCat Registry to make it easier for users to find location and contact information for libraries using the web, and includes analytics tools to help libraries examine patron traffic trends or compare their collections and services to other libraries by location, local demographics, or other criteria.

Filed Under: Mobile, Public Services Tagged With: , , ,

OCLC recommends Open Data Commons Attribution License

By on August 6, 2012

OCLC is recommending that member institutions that would like to release their catalog data on the Web do so with the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-BY). The license allows users to share, copy, distribute, modify, transform and build upon a database, provided that users “attribute any public use of the database, or works produced from the database, in the manner specified in the license,” according to ODC’s simple language summary. OCLC has requested that participants making use of WorldCat-derived data conform to the norms defined in the WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities. The ODC-BY license will also be used by OCLC, as it releases additional sets of WorldCat data, including future linked data projects.

Filed Under: Cataloging and Metadata, ILS, Standards Tagged With: , , , ,

OCLC Adds Content to WorldCat Local

By on February 28, 2012

OCLC recently signed agreements with Alexander Street Press, Brepols Publishers, Elsevier, IOP Publishing, Nordic Council of Ministers (Norden), The Philosophy Documentation Center, Rock’s Backpages, Royal Society of Chemistry’s RSC Publishing division,  Sabinet, and The Taylor & Francis Group to  add content to WorldCat Local. WorldCat Local, the OCLC discovery and delivery service, offers integrated access […]

Filed Under: Acquisition and Fulfillment, Cataloging and Metadata, Discovery, Software Tagged With: , ,

OCLC Unveils Website for Small Libraries Beta Project

By on February 16, 2012

On February 14, OCLC announced a new beta cloud-based service, Website for Small Libraries (WSSL), with which libraries with fewer than 20,000 items in their collections may construct a low-cost, simple but dynamic website. Features include basic patron and inventory management, including checkouts, returns, holds, and renewals, among other functions.

Filed Under: Digital Divide, Digital Libraries, Information Technology, Software Tagged With: , , , , , , ,