WebJunction awarded grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA,  21 June 2007 —WebJunction, the online community for library staff to meet to share ideas, solve problems and do online coursework, has been awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to replace software, enhance site functionality and provide for long-term sustainability of services to benefit the library community.

The grant, for $12.6 million over four years, will allow OCLC to replace and add software—including a new learning management system, content management system and portal software—that will provide added functionality and flexibility for WebJunction members and community partners.  The grant will also provide support needed to help WebJunction become self-sustaining within OCLC by improving its current revenue-generating services and creating new services that will assist libraries of all types.  The sustainability of WebJunction is essential to its mission to help libraries thrive in changing and challenging technological environments today, and into the future.

Introduced in 2003, the WebJunction community continues to grow rapidly and now includes more than 29,000 registered members, and a growing number of partner organizations.  In its first four years, WebJunction has hosted more than 300,000 unique visitors to the site.  Many planned site enhancements are a response to user feedback and studies of the WebJunction.org site, and many are the result of the growth and popularity of the site.

"We support WebJunction's efforts to continually enhance and improve the services it provides to its growing user base," said Jill Nishi, manager of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's U.S. Libraries initiative.  "It is important for the library community to have reliable online educational, training, and technical assistance that will meet their needs now and into the future."

"We're grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its generous support of WebJunction, its goals and mission," said Marilyn Gell Mason, executive director of WebJunction.  "This grant will enable us to provide the functionality and flexibility that partners and users tell us they need."

For more information on WebJunction, visit www.webjunction.org.

About WebJunction
WebJunction is a cooperative of library staff sharing and using online resources to identify and learn about appropriate technologies that can help ensure relevant, vibrant, sustainable libraries for every community.  In 2002, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded OCLC Online Computer Library Center a three-year grant to build WebJunction as a portal for public libraries and other organizations that provide open access to information.  Today, WebJunction is supported in part by OCLC, grants from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partners in state library agencies and other library service organizations, and by the library community itself.  More information is available at www.webjunction.org.

About OCLC
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit library membership and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, preservation and eContent services to 57,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories.  OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world's largest online resource for finding library materials.  For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.  In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.  In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.  Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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