OCLC to supply new Swiss metadata hub with discovery tool
OCLC has agreed terms with SwissBib to implement, a "Library 2.0" meta-catalogue of Swiss university libraries and the Swiss National Library. This metadata hub will provide the platform for collating and publishing the combined collections of the involved libraries. The project will also utilise the latest in search technology to build a superior end user environment for those researching Swiss academic library collections. The project is scheduled to run from November 2008 to February 2010.
To realise the objective, the SwissBib selection committee have opted for a combined solution from OCLC. CBS software provides the back-end bibliographic component required to process and treat approximately 17 million records. The records from the library catalogues will be loaded in the CBS system, converted, matched and enriched before being transferred to a publishing platform where OCLC TouchPoint will provide the discovery functionality coupled with the FAST search and index engine.
The selection committee sought a simple but sophisticated discovery solution to front the catalogue and provide fast, easy and comprehensive access to scientific information in Switzerland, as it is anticipated in the longer term that the project will culminate in the replacement of the majority of OPACs currently in use by Swiss university libraries. Further, the solution also offers the potential should this become a requirement, to raise the visibility of Swiss university libraries to a global audience on the web, through its synchronisation capability with WorldCat.