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Year in review
Governing Members do all their current cataloging online or supply current cataloging information to OCLC by computer tape or file. Governing Members participate in OCLC’s governance by electing delegates to the OCLC Members Council. July–September 2002OCLC and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek partner to operate Strata Preservation N.V., in The Hague, The Netherlands, an OCLC preservation center for the digitization and preservation of the rich history in centuries-old European collections. OCLC Canada opens a new office in Ottawa, Ontario to better serve the needs of libraries in Ontario. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and OCLC announce the 2003 IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows: Selenay Aytaç, of Istanbul, Turkey; Anjali Gulati, of Lucknow, India; Hyekong Hwang, of Seoul, South Korea; Ibrahim Ramjaun, of Mauritius; and Thi Nha Vu, of Perth, Western Australia. The Fellows’ studies in Dublin, Ohio, are subsequently postponed until 2004 as a result of the SARS illness outbreak in early 2003.
OCLC and the Scottish Federation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) host a pre-IFLA Conference on “New Directions in Metadata” in Edinburgh, Scotland. Librarians and researchers from nine countries attend for updates on topics including metadata in distributed environments, applications of the Open Archives Initiative and various, ongoing research projects. OCLC PICA opens a regional center in Paris, France to serve the needs of libraries in Cyprus, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. Seven libraries from the U.K. Consortium of University Libraries (CURL) begin using QuestionPoint, OCLC’s worldwide, collaborative digital reference service. Several of these libraries also participated in the beta testing of QuestionPoint. OCLC and OCLC PICA begin a three-year retrospective conversion project for the Koninklijke Bibliotheek to convert 400,000 of its pre-1980 records to machine-readable form. netLibrary introduces its Reference Center, which enhances libraries’ reference content and enables them to offer access to items in the reference collections of some 50 publishers, including dictionaries, encyclopedias and directories. October–December 2002OCLC dedicates the new Western Digital and Preservation Resources Center in Lacey, Washington. A part of the OCLC Western Service Center, the Lacey Preservation Center provides microfilming, digitization, training and consulting services to libraries, museums and other information repositories in western Canada, the Asia Pacific region and the western United States. The OCLC Board of Trustees elects two new members to four-year terms: Edward W. Barry, retired President of Oxford University Press, and Martín Gómez, Executive Director of the Friends & Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library. OCLC’s online course, “Cataloging Internet Resources Using MARC 21 and AACR2,” is translated into Spanish and becomes available on the OCLC Web site. The OCLC Language Sets Web store opens, enabling libraries to order shelf-ready collections for adults and children in 12 languages with full MARC cataloging and physical processing. The languages include: Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Panjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese.
The Alternative Press Index Archive debuts exclusively on the OCLC FirstSearch service, providing library users with electronic access to the paper backfiles of the Alternative Press Index from 1969–1990. netLibrary partners with RosettaBooks to offer unlimited access to an electronic library of some of the most highly-regarded 20th century authors, including 99 bestsellers from George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron, Ray Bradbury and Agatha Christie. The National and University Library of Iceland completes its translation of the 13th abridged edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification system. January–March 2003
The ÉPC-Biologie Library at the Université de Montréal, a member of OCLC Canada, begins using the QuestionPoint service via its French-language interface. OCLC sponsors a symposium that is broadcast via the World Wide Web on January 17 at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting that spotlights the development of digital library collections. The University of Cambridge selects OCLC (in partnership with MARC Link) to convert the 1.3 million bibliographic records in its guardbook catalogue, to make its records of books and periodicals published between 1500 and 1978 accessible online to library users. OCLC signs an agreement with the Chilean Directorate of Libraries, Archives, and Museums (DIBAM) for the National Library and the 368 public libraries it manages in Chile to contribute their current cataloging to OCLC and become Governing Members of the OCLC cooperative. OCLC Research and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) award research grants to Abby Goodrum, Syracuse University; Rebecca Green, University of Maryland; and Joseph Janes, University of Washington. The Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) forms a consortium of more than 70 universities that will share access to more than 8,000 eBook titles from netLibrary. The ILL Policies and Technology Directory replaces the Name-Address Directory and provides users of the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service with a Web-based, central source for entering and retrieving information on ILL policies, billing, system and contact information for participating libraries worldwide.
OCLC and the Research Libraries Group sponsor PREMIS, a new working group that will develop recommendations and best practices for implementing preservation metadata in digital preservation systems. To help libraries prepare for the future, OCLC publishes Five-Year Information Format Trends, a special report to its member libraries that presents data and forecasts on information trends that are likely to shape the information landscape in the near future. April–June 2003In recognition of widespread economic challenges facing the OCLC cooperative, OCLC announces it will keep fiscal 2004 prices at fiscal 2003 levels. “In this difficult time, the OCLC cooperative can not only offer hope, but practical solutions that can help libraries, museums and archives increase their productivity and do more with less,” says OCLC President and CEO Jay Jordan. OCLC launches WebJunction.org, a Web-based service through which libraries obtain and share information resources aimed at enhancing the public computing services they provide. WebJunction is funded by a three-year, $9 million grant that OCLC received in 2002 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The 13-member Shanghai Library Consortium, led by the Shanghai Library, begins providing access to more than 1,000 netLibrary eBook titles, joining other consortia in the Asia Pacific region that have recently begun similar efforts. Fourth quarter enhancements to the OCLC Connexion service include new searching features, save file improvements, OCLC-MARC format changes and additional record export servers. At its May meeting, the OCLC Members Council adopts a resolution to extend its 2001 authorization of six transitional delegates from regions outside the United States to help broaden global participation in the OCLC cooperative. Members Council President-Elect, Bob Seal, announces the theme for the 2003-2004 term: “Innovation, Risk-Taking and New Models of Service: Library Survival in the 21st Century.” OCLC launches the Digitization and Preservation Online Resource Center, a new Web site that provides information about copyright, digitization, grants assistance and preservation issues, as well as links to online resources that describe digitization and preservation activities at other institutions. OCLC introduces French- and Spanish-language Internet mailing lists for OCLC FirstSearch service users who prefer to receive news about FirstSearch in these languages. OCLC Canada and the Canadian Library Association announce the winner of the first OCLC Canada/CLA Award for Resource Sharing Achievement: the reference staffs at the University of New Brunswick and the University of Alberta Libraries.
The ILL Policies and Technology Directory replaces the Name-Address Directory and provides users of the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service with a Web-based, central source for entering and retrieving information on ILL policies, billing, system and contact information for participating libraries worldwide.
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PAIS introduces PAIS Direct, a quarterly, electronic publication to keep readers
alert to updates to PAIS International and highlight information contained in
the database.
Aziz Abid, Director of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Informatics Program,
addresses the OCLC Members Council at its October 20–22, meeting. “We
are committed to cooperating with IFLA and OCLC in the emerging information
age,” he said. “Together we share a set of values that is a priceless
commons for librarians and the world’s libraries.”
OCLC signs a memorandum of understanding with the King Abdulaziz Public Library
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to explore working together to build an online union
catalog of Arabic-language materials and creating another node in the global
OCLC cooperative.
OCLC hosts a dinner at its Dublin, Ohio headquarters on March 18 to raise funding
for and awareness of the American Library Association’s Spectrum Initiative.
OCLC makes the 22nd edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification available online
through WebDewey on June 15.
Fulfillment