Mash up

Mix the world’s largest catalog with your systems using Web services

The WorldCat Search API and WorldCat xISSN are software components—called Web services—that can be recombined with library applications on the Internet. The services are available through machine interfaces using emerging Web-based protocols, and they enhance library systems by integrating WorldCat data and features with library Web sites, link resolvers, cataloging tools and other services.

• WorldCat API

With the WorldCat API, you can query the WorldCat database and all of its indexes using common search protocols, such as SRU and OpenSearch. You also can retrieve records in a number of formats—MARC XML, Dublin Core, RSS, Atom—as well as a geographically sorted list of WorldCat libraries that own the item. Each library listing includes the institution name, location and the URL of the library’s Web catalog record for that item.

• WorldCat xISSN

The WorldCat xISSN supports the management of serials information and holdings. It supplies ISSNs and other information associated with serial publications represented in WorldCat. Submit an ISSN to this service, and it returns a list of related ISSNs and selected metadata. The current xISSN database covers nearly 700,000 ISSNs. With xISSN, you can find any predecessor, successor and alternate ISSNs and titles, as well as the electronic ISSN for a print title or vice versa. The service includes a graphic display of the history of a serial title.

Round the clock, round the world

Enquire joins OCLC’s 24/7 reference cooperative

Public library users in the United Kingdom now have access to reference librarians 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Enquire, an online reference service for 86 public libraries, recently became a member of the OCLC 24/7 Reference Cooperative, joining 1,400 other libraries around the world that work together to deliver reference assistance to researchers anytime, anywhere.

As a member, an Enquire reference librarian can now answer questions locally and nationally or seamlessly refer their customers to the cooperative, providing users with after-hours support as well as the expertise of a global network of reference librarians. Enquire librarians also will field questions from library users anywhere in the world as part of their participation.

Enquire is one of several groups worldwide that are locally branding a customized version of QuestionPoint, the software that powers the service. Developed by the Library of Congress and OCLC, QuestionPoint is bringing the professionalism of librarianship to Web reference assistance and helping librarians move one of their traditional strengths, the face-to-face reference interview, into the digital age.

Next-gen cataloging update

OCLC’s Next Generation Cataloging service, which was piloted earlier this year, will streamline cataloging by capturing and enriching ONIX metadata from publishers and material vendors. Capturing metadata earlier in the cataloging process will result in workflow efficiencies and greater ‘upstream’ availability of metadata for use in library technical processing and end-user interfaces.

The process also will allow output of enriched metadata in ONIX format, providing value and efficiencies in publisher supply chain metadata creation and maintenance in support of library, wholesale and retail markets.

At ALA Midwinter 2009, OCLC will report conclusions and discuss strategies for continued development of the next generation cataloging service in a presentation called “ONIX to MARC and Back Again.” A 2009 publisher/library symposium at OCLC on collaboration between publishers and libraries also is being planned.

OCLC welcomes input from both communities on new ways to think about cataloging and metadata creation in support of both library and publishing needs.

President’s Report | Life 2.0