A discussion paper, Incorporating RDA practices into WorldCat, laying out potential policies and actions is now available for comment. Please send your comments on these proposed policies and actions, as well as your thoughts on any other possible policies in regard to bibliographic records and RDA, to rdapolicy@oclc.org by April 15, 2012.

Located in the Netherlands, the University of Groningen library has digitized a number of its older and special collections and then published them online using OCLC’s CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software.

By putting the digital collections online, the library provides the university’s approximately 28,000 students, and other interested parties worldwide, with web access to its more than 50,000 scanned pages, handwritten letters and photographs.

"We wanted a system that would be fairly maintenance free, with flexibility when it comes to metadata and design, and that can run on our own server," says Alie Bijker, digitization project manager at the university library, about choosing CONTENTdm. "And OCLC provides good support and documentation and regular updates."

Available through CONTENTdm, the university provides online access to the following digital collections:

•  Manuscripts by the seventeenth-century mathematician Frans van Schooten,
•  Letters written by Dutch philosopher Frans Hemsterhuis (18th century),
•  Collections of the Biography Institute, and
•  One of the library’s rare collections, 127 fragments of Greek papyri.

This rare collection of papyri is stored in a safe, but is now visible to everyone via the web without risk of damage or wear and tear, nor is its viewing dependent the library's hours and staff availability. [Image: Fragment of Greek papyri. Letter of Isaios. AD 200-400.]

"We started our project with a pilot, to see what working with CONTENTdm was like. We really had to get used to it in the beginning but now we have experience with all kinds of ways to upload collections and make them visible," says Bijker on their CONTENTdm implementation. "Additionally, one of the projects we have planned is the presentation of some medical study collections from the University Museum. It is intended for these items to be rotatable."

The University of Groningen's digital collections are available at: http://facsimile.ub.rug.nl/cdm/

“We at OCLC are honored to receive this prestigious recognition from the professional IT community,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. “OCLC and our members are proud to be leading innovation for libraries. This recognition underscores not only the technological achievements of OCLC staff, but speaks to WorldShare’s growing adoption by the international library community.”

OCLC WorldShare Management Services introduces a cloud-based library management system that helps to unify and simplify library workflows. WorldShare Management Services enable libraries to share infrastructure costs and resources, as well as collaborate in ways that free them from the restrictions of local hardware and software. And libraries using WorldShare Management Services find that they are able to reduce the time needed for traditional tasks and free staff time for higher-priority services.

OCLC WorldShare Management Services were released for general availability July 1, 2011. There are currently more than 35 libraries using OCLC WorldShare Management Services, and more than 180 libraries worldwide have committed to the new service.

"This recognition is a tribute to the libraries and library staff members who have worked closely with OCLC staff to develop and produce a service that is changing the way libraries work," said Andrew Pace, OCLC Executive Director of Networked Library Services, who accepted the award on behalf of the OCLC cooperative. "This award is really for libraries."

OCLC WorldShare Management Services were formerly known as Webscale Management Services. The name was changed in December 2011 following launch of the new OCLC WorldShare Platform, and a rebranding of the services.

Speakers at the TechColumbus Innovation Awards event included Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, and Les Wexner, Limited Brands Founder, Chairman and CEO.

The TechColumbus Innovation Awards celebrate the spirit of innovation by recognizing outstanding technology achievements in central Ohio. This prestigious evening showcases the region’s advancements and promising future in technology. For more information, visit www.techcolumbusinnovationawards.org.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC website. 

OCLC welcomes online citation site WriteCite.com to its growing list of WorldCat.org traffic partner sites.

"WriteCite.com is an Australia-based site that helps undergraduate and upper secondary high school students create automatic citations online. It was founded by a university lecturer in response to the growth of Internet-enabled and nontraditional information sources that still require referencing by today’s students. Started in 2009, the site provides citations in APA, Harvard and MLA styles and features a free mobile version, iCite APA, that is available for Apple iOS and Android devices.

WriteCite provides a way to search the world’s library collections via WorldCat, made possible through the OCLC WorldShare Platform. The WorldShare Platform gives flexible, open access to library data through APIs and Web Services, so that students can discover, cite and create lists for information in e-books, books, chapters, magazines, newspapers, websites, journals, films and more.

"Since we’ve implemented the WorldCat search and ability to find a local library," says founder and owner Michael Hargreaves, "we've seen a big increase in the amount of time people stay on the site. Our partnership with OCLC to include WorldCat searching and library-find has increased the functionality of the site. Our users benefit from the cooperative efforts of Australian and the world’s libraries. And universities benefit from better-formed citations."

WriteCite.com is free for educational use and has been designed so that the form, search and preview panels can be "white label" implemented into a learning library's Web page without the WriteCite logo.

"We’re so pleased that an Australian-based company can assist students worldwide," explains Chris Thewlis, Regional Manager for OCLC's Australian office. "With the WorldShare Platform now in place, it opens up additional partnership opportunities for locally created apps that help increase library visibility anywhere users are looking for quality, vetted information."

WriteCite.com offers the ability to cite books, advertising creative, electronic information, Internet resources, journals and reference materials. It is unique in online citation services, in that users view the citation format as they enter their information, so they learn how to reference materials as they go. It is available for both individual and institutional subscriptions and continues to be developed in Brisbane, Australia.

WriteCite.com is one of several automated citation applications that include library data from WorldCat, including EasyBib, BibMe and Citavi. There is also built-in functionality available on WorldCat.org that exports to popular citation software packages such as RefWorks, EndNote and EasyBib.

The WorldShare Platfom APIs are available to anyone interested in creating websites, mash-ups or mobile apps that include library data. An OCLC office in Melbourne supports Australia-based third-party sites like WriteCite.com to find worldwide scale through commercial partnership arrangements.

Full-text searching is now available in WorldCat Local, OCLC's discovery-to-delivery service that offers users integrated access to more than 922 million items worldwide. This latest enhancement creates an even more powerful search experience, with the addition of searching words within full-text articles.

The new search functionality follows the addition of full-text content from IEEE to the WorldCat Local central index. The IEEE Publications full-text database provides a comprehensive collection of resources to support research on technology topics.

WorldCat Local users may search collections indexed in the WorldCat Local central index, based on agreements with content providers.  Searchable collections now include IEEE, BioOne and Emerald, and new content from additional sources will be added on an ongoing basis.

Library staff may set their default keyword search to a new "keyword plus full text" search. In addition, two new indexes, a "full text only" and a "keyword + full text" are available from the advanced search page for a WorldCat Local-implemented library. Libraries with WorldCat Local may enable the full-text search functionality within OCLC Service Configuration.

View a list of more than 1,700 databases and collections from IEEE and other publishers available through WorldCat Local ››

As library investments and patron demands for e-resources continue to grow, libraries need to effectively manage these resources alongside their print materials. OCLC has responded to this change through a strategy that includes adding licensed and open access content to WorldCat, building the knowledge base for e-resources, enhancing resource sharing to allow the sharing of electronic articles, and introducing an entire suite of new services for electronic materials. That suite includes link resolving, acquisitions, and a license manager for subscription, access, license, vendor and rights management.

The advisory council is advising OCLC on that strategy, and on refining a clear message around that strategy. The council is also exploring new ways the cooperative can help to maximize exposure of electronic collections and the same time reduce the total cost of acquiring, managing and exposing electronic collections.

Members of the E-resource Advisory Council are:

• Regine Becher, User Services Project Manager, Conservation and Collection Care Manager, Bavarian State Library
• Maria Collins, Associate Head, Content Acquisitions and Licensing, North Carolina State University
• Jennifer Kuehn, Interim Head, Collection Development, The Ohio State University
• Anne Prestamo, Associate Dean for Collection and Technology Services, Oklahoma State University
• Tim Rogers, Executive Director, NC LIVE
• Dr. Hildegard Schäffler, Head of Serials and Electronic Media, Bavarian State Library
• Gregg Silvis, Librarian and Assistant Director for Library Computing Systems, University of Delaware
• Bonnie Tijerina, Assistant Director for Collection Services, Claremont Colleges
• Holly Tomren, Head, Metadata Services, Drexel University Libraries
• Stefanie Wittenbach, University Librarian, Texas A&M University--San Antonio
• Ted Fons, Executive Director, Data Services, OCLC, ex officio
• Andrew Pace, Executive Director, Networked Library Services, OCLC, ex officio

"Serving on the E-resource Advisory Council has been useful for me to get a better understanding of OCLC's vision of how emerging services will be able to benefit library workflows," said Jennifer Kuehn, Interim Head, Collection Development, The Ohio State University, and council member.

"OCLC is fortunate to work with a group of recognized thought leaders dedicated to helping libraries face an issue of critical importance to libraries," said Ted Fons, Executive Director, Data Services & WorldCat Quality. "The E-resource Advisory Council provides an excellent opportunity for OCLC staff to articulate our vision and to listen carefully to the profession’s leaders. The Council is an enormous asset to the cooperative as we work together to anticipate new needs in e-resource management."

The E-resource Advisory Council is planning to meet next during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, Texas.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC website.

The University of Delaware Library will implement OCLC WorldShare Management Services, including the OCLC WorldShare License Manager, by the summer of 2013. The new “cloud-based” system will increase effectiveness and better utilize the Library’s vast resources, according to the University.

In 2008, the Library was one of the first institutions to implement WorldCat Local, OCLC’s Webscale discovery and delivery service. Since then, 29 ARL libraries have implemented WorldCat Local.

"OCLC has a long and distinguished history of supporting libraries in their role of bringing information to users," said Susan Brynteson, Vice Provost and May Morris Director of Libraries, who has been involved with the OCLC cooperative for many years. "The University of Delaware Library is delighted to be at the forefront in this next-generation of library services."

"OCLC's Webscale solution represents transformative change," said Gregg A. Silvis, Assistant Director for Library Computing Systems, University of Delaware. "Libraries have been working toward this type of solution for years. Taking routine library functions to the cloud will reduce duplication of loading records locally, and eliminates the need for maintaining local systems. In addition, as the first academic research library in the U.S. to implement OCLC WorldShare Management Services, the Library is glad to have the opportunity to develop these services to help meet the needs of other research libraries."

Tom Apple, Provost of the University of Delaware, stated, "The implementation of WorldShare Management Services demonstrates the commitment of the Library to provide first-rate research services to the faculty and students of the University of Delaware."

The University of Delaware Library will have an improved means for getting users to resources of all types and formats, according to Silvis. "WorldShare Management Services will provide the Library the opportunity to conduct careful analysis of our workflows across the library."

"We at OCLC greatly appreciate the University of Delaware’s willingness to work with the OCLC cooperative in innovative ways that advance research, scholarship and education," said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. "We look forward to working with the staff of this important research library in implementing a new cooperative model that will benefit students, faculty and librarians."

Andrew Pace, OCLC Executive Director of Networked Library Services, explained that the cooperative works collaboratively with the membership to ensure that services have meaning to and impact on the library community. "The University of Delaware Library will be invaluable in helping OCLC shape and enhance WorldShare Management Services."

Libraries using OCLC WorldShare Management Services lower the total cost of ownership for their library’s management and free staff time for higher-priority services. These services provide a Web-based environment that streamlines cataloging, acquisitions, license management and circulation. OCLC WorldShare Management Services enable libraries to share infrastructure costs and resources, as well as collaborate in ways that free them from the restrictions of local hardware and software.

In 2010, OCLC announced that it was making OCLC WorldShare Management Services available to a group of early adopters. OCLC WorldShare Management Services was released for general availability July 1, 2011. There are currently 33 libraries using OCLC WorldShare Management Services; and 171 libraries worldwide have committed to the new service.

More about OCLC WorldShare Management Services can be found on the OCLC website.

About the University of Delaware
Tracing its heritage back to 1743, the University of Delaware is a state-assisted, privately controlled institution with an enrollment of more than 16,000 undergraduates, 3,500 graduate student and 1,000 professional and continuing study students. The University offers degrees in a broad range of disciplines across seven colleges, and is a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution. The University is classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of teaching as a research university with very high research activity—a designation accorded fewer than three percent of U.S. colleges and universities.

The Hugh M. Morris Library on the Newark campus of the University of Delaware offers access to the Library’s collection of 2.8 million print volumes, 42,000 serials and more than 310 databases offered to 21,000 students. For Library hours call 302-831-BOOK or check the Library website at www.udel.edu/library.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC website.

If sports isn’t your thing, maybe you’re wondering what campus life was like at the then Austin Peay State College during World War II. In the March 19, 1943, edition of The All State, students learned the disappointing news that there would be no spring break that year.

“Dr. Claxton has announced that there will be no necessity for a vacation since the meeting of the State Teachers’ Association in Nashville has been cancelled as a result of war shortages and rationing,” the article stated.

Anyone interested in catching a glimpse of what the Austin Peay State University (APSU) campus was like over the years can now use a valuable new tool available through the University’s Felix G. Woodward Library’s digital collection. For the last few months, APSU associate professor of library administration Gina Garber and Scott Shumate, APSU digital services assistant, have worked to digitize and make available all editions of The All State student newspaper. Two student workers, Kyle Nelson and Edd Garcia, also assisted on the project.

“Using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, each word on the page was read and indexed for use in our CONTENTdm system,” Shumate said. “This means that information from every issue can be searched for directly, no need for date or issue number, although those options are still available.”

The Library and the APSU Office of Student Affairs contributed in purchasing OCLC’s CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software and server. Now, anyone can peruse back issues of The All State by visiting http://digital-library.apsu.edu.

The first portion of this project, which was recently completed, contains 1,158 issues of the newspaper from 1930 to 1988. The remainder of the volumes from 1989 until the present is being added as quickly as possible.

This OCLC News Item is from the article, “APSU library creates digital collection of student newspapers,” written by Charles W. Booth, Public Relations and Marketing, Austin Peay State University. Published on the web on November 21, 2011, it was used with permission by OCLC. The original story is available from the Austin Peay State University website: http://www.apsu.edu/news/apsu-library-creates-digital-collection-student-newspapers

In the research that led to the publication of Online Catalogs: What End Users and Librarians Want library staff who use WorldCat ranked the need for increased accuracy in name and subject headings as a highly desired improvement. The report on WorldCat quality issued in September 2011 identified a project to control more headings in WorldCat as a priority during OCLC’s fiscal year 2012. The following describes this new controlling effort which will provide benefit to all users of WorldCat, regardless of which interface they use.

Current controlling functionality in Connexion. The controlling functionality currently available in the Connexion applications enables users to link authority records to headings in master WorldCat bibliographic records. Cataloger-initiated controlling functions facilitate automatic updating of headings in bibliographic records.

• Connexion users initiate matching headings in bibliographic records to established authority records.
• The system normalizes the headings in bibliographic records, matches them with authority records, and inserts the linked heading in the bibliographic record.

New stand-alone controlling software. OCLC is extending the Control All functionality by developing a stand-alone batch service that runs independently. The software evaluates all bibliographic records in WorldCat and controls headings as detailed below.

Records evaluated for processing. The software will evaluate the following bibliographic records in WorldCat for processing according to different time schedules:

• Master bibliographic records newly added to WorldCat contributed either through online applications or through batchload will be evaluated daily.
• Master bibliographic records changed and replaced in WorldCat will be evaluated on a pre-determined schedule.
• Existing master bibliographic records in WorldCat will be evaluated on a to-be-determined schedule and as capacity allows.

OCLC has begun processing records selected from among new and replaced records and will gradually increase the number of records processed each day over the next few weeks. We will announce when we begin processing existing records and will report periodically on progress.

Criteria for record selection. The software will select candidate bibliographic records for processing that contain the following:

• An 040 field with no ‡b present and at least one of the following controllable fields:

• 100, 110, 111, 130
• 600, 610, 611, 630, 650, 651, second indicator 0
• 655, second indicator 7, ‡2 lcgft
• 700, 710, 711, 730
• 800, 810, 811, 830

• An 040 field with ‡b present containing the value eng and at least one of the following controllable fields:

• 100, 110, 111, 130
• 600, 610, 611, 630, 650, 651, second indicator 0
• 655, second indicator 7, ‡2 lcgft
• 700, 710, 711, 730
• 800, 810, 811, 830

• An 040 field with ‡b present but containing a value not equal to eng and at least one of the following controllable fields:

• 600, 610, 611, 630, 650, 651, second indicator 0
• 655, second indicator 7, ‡2 lcgft

• A partially or fully controlled heading.

How the software works.
The software will not:

• Attempt to control unqualified personal names (personal name only that does not include ‡b, ‡c, ‡d, and/or ‡q).
• Control a heading to an undifferentiated authority record.
• Cause automated tag flips of any type.

The software will:

• Automatically expand dates for candidate personal name headings.
• Partially control series fields and automatically append ‡v.
• Maintain the links between non-Latin script headings and their Latin-script equivalents.

The software will also make the following adjustments as needed:

• Apply any appropriate punctuation changes.
• Attempt to control partially controlled headings.
• Uncontrol descriptive heading fields (1XX, 7XX and 8XX) if the value in field 040 in the bibliographic record is other than eng.
• Delete a geographic subdivision from a subject heading if the heading can be completely controlled and no element of the heading can be subdivided geographically.

The symbol “OCLCO” will be appended in ‡d of the 040 field in bibliographic records that are modified by the software.
If a bibliographic record is locked, the software will skip it and reevaluate it when the lock has been removed.
The new software supplements individual cataloging activity. As with the “Control All” headings function in Connexion, some circumstances prevent the software from controlling all headings in WorldCat records. The software cannot do the manual “Single Control” headings functions that catalogers can do in Connexion. The software cannot control non-qualified personal names, headings that have no exact match or that match only partially, headings that are mis-tagged, headings that contain typographical errors or other errors that require correction.

OCLC encourages catalogers working in WorldCat to continue using the control headings functions in Connexion when adding or upgrading records as you continue to share your cataloging expertise with the cooperative.

This month, four collections from the CONTENTdm Collection of Collections are featured on the OCLC Web site. The featured collections for January are Railroads in the Midwest: Early Documents and Images, Rarely Seen Richmond, the African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection and the Ken Gonzales-Day Collection.

Railroads in the Midwest: Early Documents and Images Knox College This collection containing photographs, documents, texts and ephemera--annual reports, published books, stock certificates, and more--covers the early history of railroads in the Midwest, and in Illinois in particular, documents the role that railroads played in westward expansion. Many of the photographs of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy trains were taken by Allen A. Green, Knox College class of 1903. Green photographed work trains, travelers and crews aboard passenger trains, and the engines, cars and interiors of the fast mail trains, and he pioneered the photography of trains in motion by developing a trigger device that allowed a train to take its own picture. This digital collection of images and documents celebrates railroad history up to the introduction of the Pioneer Zephyr of the Burlington Route in 1933.

Rarely Seen Richmond Virginia Commonwealth University Early twentieth century Richmond, Virginia as seen through vintage postcards is a digital collection of over 600 postcard images of Richmond, most dating from 1900-1930, from the Special Collections and Archives of the VCU Libraries. The intent of the collection is to help document early twentieth century Richmond by displaying a unique collection of images of the city. Many of these images include buildings and structures that either no longer exist or have since been altered. The subject matter of these postcards also lends insight into the social and cultural attitudes of those times.

African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection University of Iowa This digital collection of photographs, news clippings, pamphlets, scrapbooks, directories, and newsletters documents the experience of African American women in Iowa during the twentieth century. The collection, ca. 1924-1970, is an outgrowth of The African-American Women in Iowa Project, a collaboration between the Iowa Women's Archives and the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa.

Ken Gonzales-Day Collection Claremont University Consortium Ken Gonzales-Day lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from UC Irvine, and his MA in Art History from Hunter College (C.U.N.Y). Fellowships include: Whitney Museum of American Art, ISP; Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio (Italy); (Latino Studies) American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (2008). Gonzales-Day is a Professor at Scripps College in California. Included in the collection are Gonzales-Day's Curriculum Vitae, images that Gonzales-Day used to compile his art and publications, notebooks documenting his research, and photographs and documentation of art installations.