NetLibrary launches new eAudiobook content

Libraries can purchase individual titles from Books On Tape and Blackstone Audio one at a time, just like eBooks

NetLibrary, a division of OCLC and a leading platform for eContent to libraries worldwide, now offers a selection of over 2,000 perennial best-sellers, timeless classics and hot new releases from Books On Tape and Blackstone Audio. The new titles complement the collection from Recorded Books, which is available as a subscription program.

Featured Books On Tape authors from Random House include: Mitch Albom, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Ann Brashares, Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, Kate DiCamillo, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Sue Grafton, Carl Hiaasen, John Irving, Jonathan Kellerman, Dean Koontz, Lois Lowry, Mary Pope Osborne, Phillip Pullman, Anna Quindlen, Anne Rice, Louis Sachar, Jerry Spinelli, Danielle Steel and Jules Verne.

Best-selling titles from Blackstone Audio include: The Civil War, Mere Christianity, The Aubrey/Maturin Series, Beyond Band of Brothers, Charlie Wilson’s War and A Confederacy of Dunces. Current releases include: The Legend of the Wandering King, a CBC/NSTA Outstanding International Book for 2006; The Secret River, the 2006 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize winner and a shortlisted title for the Man Booker Prize; The Sherlock Holmes Theatre, Blackstone Audio’s 2005 Audie Award winner for Best Drama; and The Prestige, winner of the World Fantasy Award.

Fifty new titles have also just been added from Listen and Live. Stay tuned for more publishers, more titles, more authors... more choices from NetLibrary eAudiobooks.

Visit the NetLibrary Web site to browse individual titles by subject.

Building a community of WorldCat users

User profiles to debut in WorldCat.org

Establishing a social network of the world’s library users will soon take a major leap forward with the introduction of WorldCat.org personal profiles. Personal profiles are “My WorldCat Accounts” that allow users to create identities at the WorldCat.org site by listing name, location, interests, occupation, photos, e-mail address and links to other personal accounts, as well as library affiliation. In addition, the profiles allow users to manage contributions to WorldCat, such as reviews, ratings, artwork and recommendations. It is the first step in a series of new WorldCat.org features designed to start a Web conversation by mixing
libraries with users.

Over the next year, OCLC plans to add a variety of social services to WorldCat.org, including tagging, list creation and sharing, citation management and personal cataloging.

WorldCat.org is a new destination Web site that allows people inside and outside the library environment to discover and use the resources of WorldCat libraries. People can go to this site to search WorldCat or to download the new WorldCat search box.

Visit WorldCat.org for more information.

Reinventing ILLiad

The distributed resource sharing tool sports a new look and a new efficiency

Among the enhancements:

• An overhauled, rearchitected, CSS-based Web interface

• Updated communications tools, including RSS feeds for user notifications and ILLiad-based system alerts

• A redesigned authentication model to provide flexibility for additional methods and continuance of current practices

• Integration of new WorldCat Resource Sharing Web services (version 1.2) to provide more timely request handling and additional flexibility of request processing

• More accurate lender strings from the WorldCat SRW Web service, which has been enhanced to allow ILLiad to view filtered lender strings based on the volume and year in the resource sharing request

Visit the ILLiad Web site for more information.

Databases by the dozen

OCLC will add 12 new databases to its FirstSearch service later in 2007 when the databases migrate from RLG’s Eureka service to FirstSearch—more than half of them will be FirstSearch exclusives (noted in boldface). These databases include:

• Anthropological Index

• Anthropological Literature

• Anthropology Plus

• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals

• Bibliography of the History of Art

• Chicano Database

• FRANCIS: International Humanities and Social Sciences

• Hand Press Book Database

• History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

• Index to 19th-Century American Art Periodicals

• Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies

• SCIPIO: Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs

First-time subscribers to any of these 12 databases will receive up to a 12-month subscription for the cost of six months of access. Orders must be placed by June 25, 2007. Contact OCLC library services for more information. For more information about the databases, visit the RLG transition information for reference Web page.

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