Moving discovery and delivery to the network

WorldCat Local connects collections in a Web-scale way

By Brad Gauder

Despite steady advances in information access technologies, fragmented search and discovery systems in libraries have challenged information seekers’ abilities to find the resources they need. It’s easy to understand why. Library Web sites often present an array of complicated islands—OPACs, licensed e-resources, digitized collections, metasearch engines, institutional repositories—each with its own user interface and all with very little integration.

To help respond to this challenge, OCLC developed WorldCat Local, a discovery-to-delivery solution that integrates access to a library’s entire collection of information resources through a simple, locally branded search box that searches WorldCat.org. Now available for purchase after months of pilot testing, WorldCat Local connects people to library resources and provides them with the best available fulfillment options—all built on the familiar WorldCat.org platform.

To the information seeker, WorldCat Local is a simple search box. WorldCat Local finds results that emphasize your collection and resources in your group—as well as relevant results from the rest of the WorldCat database. You can brand the interface with your library’s logo, Web site colors and links—and link it to other resources and services you offer—reinforcing your library’s value to information seekers.

WorldCat Local interoperates with your locally maintained services—like circulation, resource sharing and resolution to full text—all of which help users quickly determine the location and availability of the resources they need. WorldCat Local also offers social networking tools like list-sharing, reviews and personal profiles to give users a reason to return. Its simple implementation means you have no hardware or software to install and you have full OCLC support. Upgrades are automatically sent to participating libraries.

Several of the pilot implementations are now publicly viewable and in production:

• University of Washington;
• University of California;
• Lincoln Trail (IL) Libraries System;
• Ohio State University Libraries.

On April 28, the State Library of Ohio flipped the switch ‘on’ for WorldCat Local to allow users to search and place requests for library materials owned by the State Library, OhioLINK and other libraries worldwide. Cornell University Library, the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Delaware Library also have signed agreements to use WorldCat Local, as well as several other libraries.

Reactions from librarians

According to Diana Brooking, Cataloging Librarian at the Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington (UW), WorldCat Local has helped connect users with needed resources. “The number of interlibrary loan requests has increased by over 100 percent and the amount of materials we have been able to borrow through ILL for UW users has increased by nearly 50 percent,” she reports.

WorldCat Local has also made it easier for UW users to request materials held by local consortia partners—specifically from the Summit Libraries consortium—with borrowing activity up by 62 percent. “WorldCat Local has really made it easy for users to discover materials beyond what is held at the University of Washington Libraries,” notes Brooking.

Nancy Huling, head of the Reference and Research Services Division at UW Libraries, and a colleague of Brooking, is a fan of WorldCat Local. She recently introduced a professor from UW’s College of Education to WorldCat Local, and called that reference desk interaction “a great success story with one very happy faculty person!”

When he visited the reference desk and spoke with Huling, the education professor asked for the best way to find book reviews, which he seeks in advance of assigning or recommending books to his students.

“The title we searched was Contentious Curricula, and it was a great search,” says Huling. “We found the book and eight reviews. The professor was ecstatic, and impressed with the review sources. I was also able to explain how requests could be placed without going separately to Summit or interlibrary loan.”

Huling says she couldn’t resist offering other options beyond WorldCat Local to the education professor in case he needed them, but he quickly declined saying, “This is perfect.”

She also heard from a graduate student who reported his “best source so far” for his research to be the main keyword search functionality from the library’s Web site, which was the WorldCat Local search box. The student specifically praised the interface’s broad searching capability, noting that most of the science and engineering articles he finds through WorldCat Local are directly available as full-text articles.

Reaction from a blogger at another pilot site has been positive as well. Eric Schnell, Associate Professor at Ohio State’s Prior Health Sciences Library, noted in his blog that WorldCat Local’s faceted browse capability “jumped off the screen” at him. He also said he was hooked after “playing” with WorldCat Local “for only five minutes.”

While online library catalogs have advanced in recent years, WorldCat Local is making the search for resources continually easier for information seekers. Nancy Huling thinks WorldCat Local is more than evolutionary, however: “I think WorldCat Local is transforming the user experience with library catalogs.”

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