Updates [OCLC]

No.5
ISSN: 1559-0011
December 2006

What’s up with RLG services

When the membership of the Research Libraries Group (RLG) overwhelmingly approved the agreement to combine with OCLC, the task of integrating services became a top priority. Here is a progress report.

Technical services. OCLC Connexion now features RLIN21 online cataloging functionality for searching authority history and for guided entry for archival control fields, as well as additional non-roman support and authority searching for the Z39.50 service. OCLC staff began loading RLG catalog records into WorldCat in December 2006. Support for institutional records (record clustering) is coming in May 2007. By July 2007, the RLG Union Catalog will be completely merged with WorldCat and all RLG libraries will be using Connexion.

Discovery services. In June 2007, 12 of the 17 RLG Eureka databases will be migrated to OCLC FirstSearch. Those to be discontinued: English Short Title Catalogue, Handbook of Latin American Studies, Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals, Inside Information Plus and Index to Hispanic Legislation. The Hand Press Book Database and SCIPIO: Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs will be integrated into WorldCat and searchable via FirstSearch as well as Connexion for updating by catalogers.

Resource Sharing. Data fields from RLG’s ILL Manager for e-delivery addresses are now included in OCLC ILLiad and WorldCat Resource Sharing workforms. The fields will be added to Constant Data and IDR profiles in January 2007. Users of ILL Manager will migrate to an OCLC resource sharing service by September 2007. To help users migrate, OCLC will archive requests from ILL Manager into a central database in June 2007 from which users can search, display and export. The RLG SHARES Program is continuing and efforts are underway to expand the number of participants. In addition, a new statistical report will be available for SHARES users that provides an overview of resource sharing transactions between libraries.

Service moves. RLG’s ArchiveGrid is now hosted in the OCLC Data Center. The migration included porting ArchiveGrid from the Sun Solaris operating system to Linux, adding usage statistics and implementing OCLC’s authentication system. The CAMIO service will move to the OCLC CONTENTdm platform. Citation formatting features based on RLG’s RedLightGreen, which ended in November 2006, will be added to WorldCat.org in 2007. No decision has been made regarding RLG Cultural Materials.

ILL analyses = data-driven, collection development

WorldCat Colection Analysis can now evaluate a library’s ILL activity to create borrowing and lending analyses and identify potential collection development opportunities. This enhancement crunches WorldCat Resource Sharing data, as well as

ILLiad transactions that go through WorldCat Resource Sharing, to give a library the ability to:

compare borrowing requests over time to identify acquisition priorities;

compare borrowing requests based on age, subject, serial and nonserial items;

analyze what your library borrows—items that supplement your collection; and

analyze items your library is lending—which reveals how your collection is used.

WorldCat Cataloging Partners emerges

The OCLC Cataloging Partners program is merging with the OCLC PromptCat service to form WorldCat Cataloging Partners. The new, enhanced service is a collaborative effort with materials vendors to reduce the cost of cataloging for libraries.

WorldCat Cataloging Partners delivers OCLC MARC records for materials ordered through participating vendor partners, as well as setting a library’s holdings automatically in WorldCat. It has three levels of service. The Basic Service provides automated copy cataloging, while the 100% Record Delivery option guarantees a record for every title. The Customized Record Delivery option offers customized local editing that can’t be done through automated processes. For more information, visit the WorldCat Cataloging Partners Web page.