Debate
on the future of libraries at OCLC sponsored JISC Conference
"Enabling Innovation"
was the title for this year’s JISC Conference, a key date
in the diary of information professionals in the UK Higher Education
Community and sponsored for the first time by OCLC Programs &
Research. Bringing together senior figures from across the sector,
this year the question of how libraries in the future should be
interfacing with their users seemed more pertinent than ever, with
debate about the practical application of Web2.0 principles in libraries
continuing.
The Conference kicked
off with a stirring keynote address by Lord David Puttnam, who is
renowned for his work as director on films like "Chariots of
Fire" but has, in his later career become a passionate advocate
for education and has recently been appointed the Chancellor of
the Open University.
"Libraries of the
Future" was identified as a key theme for the coming year,
with JISC gearing much of its activity, including events, reports
and podcasts to this discussion. One of the major outputs so far
from this has been the publication of a major new report entitled
"JISC and SCONUL Study: An evaluation and horizon scan
of the current library management systems and related systems landscape
for UK higher education" . Download
the full report here.
NetLibrary News
Spring Promotion of Subject
Sets
With content spanning
hundreds of subject areas, NetLibrary is offering a growing catalogue
of more than 150,000 eBook titles. The NetLibrary Spring 2008 promotion
offers subscribers savings on the purchase of eBook Subject Sets.
• 10% off purchases
under US $12,000
• 25% off purchases of US $12,000 or more
This offer is available
for purchases placed in a single order and received by June 30,
2008.
Introducing a new eAudiobook
collection
NetLibrary has just launched
a new eAudiobook subscription collection featuring best-selling
fiction, history, mysteries, movie tie-ins, science fiction, children’s
literature, classics and more read by award-winning narrators.
The eAudiobook Blackstone
Collection is now available to libraries worldwide as an annual
subscription with unlimited simultaneous user access. The collection
features hundreds of best-selling, popular, classic and contemporary
titles, read by award-winning narrators.
The collection's broad
subject coverage in both fiction and non-fiction categories will
satisfy the recreational, professional, and educational interests
of listeners of all ages.
OCLC offers Digital Archive
service for long-term storage of libraries' digital collections
OCLC is now providing
a Digital Archive service for long-term storage of originals and
master files from libraries' digital collections.
The Digital Archive service
is simplified to fit with a variety of digital library workflows
and to keep the costs of safely storing these important files within
the budget of a library's digital program. The service will provide
automated monitoring and reports on stored digital collections.
OCLC has been leading
preservation efforts in the library community with digital archive
services since 2001. The Digital Archive service builds on that
experience. OCLC has integrated the service to fit typical workflows
for building and managing digital collections.
"We're moving the Digital Archive service from its theoretical
roots into a mainstream production service with practical applications
supporting the work that digital library programs must do today,"
said Greg Zick, Vice President, OCLC Digital Collection Services.
"The Digital Archive Service gives libraries a clear solution
for long-term protection of their digital data."
The service provides a
secure storage environment for libraries to easily manage and monitor
master files and digital originals. The importance of preserving
master files grows as a library's digital collections grow. Libraries
need a workflow for capturing and managing master files that finds
a balance between the acquisition of both digitised and born-digital
content while not outpacing a library's capability to manage these
large files.
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Article records from British Library
now in WorldCat.org
OCLC has added some 20
million article-level metadata records to WorldCat.org from the
British Library.
The new records come from British
Library Inside Serials, the library’s flagship serials
service that gives access to articles from 20,000 journals. This
data load increases by 60 percent the amount of article-level metadata
in WorldCat.org and brings the number of article records to over
57 million. The records also are available in WorldCat
Local, a localised version of WorldCat.org that integrates a
library's entire collection of information resources through a simple,
locally branded interface.
"Adding this article
metadata allows us to help our member institutions in two ways,"
says Chip Nilges, Vice President, OCLC Business Development. “It
makes more of their collections accessible on the open Web through
WorldCat.org, and it makes WorldCat Local an even more robust discovery
service for a library's local collections. We’re very glad
to have the British Library as a partner in this project."
WorldCat.org is a Web
portal to the global WorldCat catalogue with a supporting program
of data syndication that makes your library’s collection and
services discoverable virtually anywhere on the Web, including major
search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live Search.
Learn more about WorldCat.org.
OCLC launch new Polish
selection service
OCLC have launched a new
Polish language book selection service, known simply as “Polish
List”. The service offers UK libraries with quarterly booklists
of fiction and non-fiction Polish language titles along with MARC
records, in order to assist language specialists in sourcing current
Polish materials.
The service has been launched
in partnership with Grant & Cutler, the UK’s largest foreign
language bookseller. Their selection staff, who are all native speaking
and have many years experience, are working with OCLC to determine
the most relevant titles for library purchase.
Catherine Bonser, Product Manager for the service said “This
project has come together remarkably quickly because of the overwhelming
view that libraries are in real need of such a selection tool”.
Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, there has been a sharp rise
in the number of Poles living and working in the UK, with figures
as high as 270,000 being estimated.
Polish List is part of
a program of services offered by OCLC to support non-English language
title acquisition. Most notably in the UK, OCLC publishes CILLA,
which has served libraries for 25 years in meeting the needs of
their Indic communities.
Polish List will issue
in April for the first time and, a discount of 10% is on offer to
libraries ordering before 31st May.
For more information on
Polish List email uk@oclc.org.
OCLC releases EZproxy
5.0 authentication and access software
OCLC has released a new
version of EZproxy, the leading software solution for serving library
users remotely, offering new features as well as support.
More than 2,500 institutions
in over 60 countries have purchased EZproxy software to provide
libraries a solution for authenticating remote user access to licensed
databases. OCLC will honour the previous service arrangement for
existing and new users whereby licensees continue to enjoy access
to new releases of EZproxy and technical support at no additional
charge. EZproxy 5.0 software is available to new licensees at the
same price as previous releases.
EZproxy 5.0 software enhancements
allow libraries to:
- View
enhanced audit details that incorporate the location associated
with the source IP address.
- Search
across audit data to identify suspicious activity, including options
to search based on location.
- Alter
user access based on location, including the ability to block
access or require additional information for access.
- Display
a summary of database conflicts to identify and correct configuration
issues.
- Develop
advanced user authentication and authorization configurations
using a new administration page.
EZproxy 5.0 will be the
first release to offer technical support from OCLC.
OCLC and Orbis Cascade Alliance to
develop new consortial borrowing solution
The Orbis Cascade Alliance
in Portland, Oregon and OCLC are working together to migrate the
Alliance's Summit union catalogue to a consortial borrowing solution
based on the integration of WorldCat.org, VDX, WorldCat Resource
Sharing and a new circulation gateway in time for the beginning
of the 2008-2009 academic school year.
The Orbis Cascade Alliance
will implement a WorldCat Group Catalogue with an interface based
on WorldCat.org. This union catalogue will present the 28-million-volume
collections of the 35 Alliance member institutions at the top of
results sets, followed by results from the rest of WorldCat, the
world's largest online database for discovery of items in libraries.
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