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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.
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.
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.
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