Article sharing

Sharing electronic resources just got easier

The introduction of the new WorldCat knowledge base simplifies the way your library can share electronic resources such as journal articles and eBooks. The result is time savings for your library staff and faster access to electronic resources for the people who need them.

The WorldCat knowledge base provides detailed lists of the electronic resources in your library's collections to ensure that your library initiates copy requests only for items you do not own. In addition, a license management tool allows you to indicate which journal titles and collections you have the rights to share through interlibrary loan and instructions about how you can loan them (e.g., print and send, print and scan, etc.) Together, these enhancements help your staff more efficiently process incoming requests for electronic articles you own and are licensed to loan.

New functionality included in your WorldCat Resource Sharing or ILLiad subscription

Diagram illustrating the fulfillment workflow. (Click to enlarge.)

Once you add your local knowledge base to the WorldCat knowledge base and implement license management functionality in the Service Configuration module, you may take advantage of:

• Enhanced lending display for e-articles
  ILL requests will include a direct link to requested electronic articles when your library owns the content and can lend it based on your license rights. Processing article-based requests submitted through WorldCat Resource Sharing or ILLiad begins automatically with a search of the WorldCat knowledge base and associated license management tool. If a selected lender (based on your Custom Holdings preferences) has the electronic article and can lend it, the service displays a direct article link to the lending library. Lending library staff uses that link to connect directly to the full-text article. The lender can then follow the instructions (if provided) and supply a pdf to the borrowing institution via ILLiad, Odyssey, ARIEL or another method.
• Use of the Direct Request feature for sharing articles
  When both a borrowing and lending library using Direct Request have loaded their local knowledge bases into the WorldCat knowledge base, the system:
  • Identifies lending libraries more accurately.
  • Passes the URL of the needed item directly to the lending library in the ILL request.
    This eliminates the tedious manual steps of consulting multiple service interfaces to locate a needed item and then consulting a separate source to determine lending policies set by content providers.
  • Reduces loan requests for items your library owns.
    When a user submits a request to borrow an item your library already holds, Direct Request sends you a link to the item with a note indicating your library owns it. This feature helps your staff more efficiently process requests from your users for articles you own.

  In many cases, use of the new feature means that ILL staff can complete a loan transaction without ever leaving their desk.

Members benefit from knowledge base contributions

As more libraries add their local knowledge bases into the WorldCat knowledge base and enable knowledge base access in WorldCat Resource Sharing, lending libraries will receive loan requests that contain direct links to electronic articles in their collections that they are licensed to loan. This gives ILL staff the information they need to quickly retrieve the needed items without the added step of consulting multiple sites to determine an item's location. The time savings realized by OCLC members from this new functionality will grow over time as more OCLC members contribute local data to the global WorldCat knowledge base.

Added value for your current subscription

This new functionality is available to all OCLC Cataloging and Resource Sharing subscribers at no additional charge.

Getting started

Use of the WorldCat knowledge base for article sharing is available to any library with an OCLC Cataloging subscription and a subscription to ILLiad or WorldCat Resource Sharing.

1. Complete an initiation request
2. An OCLC Implementation Manager will contact you to assist as you add your library's holdings and license data into the WorldCat knowledge base. The knowledge base can be populated through FTP data load or manually through the OCLC Service Configuration module.
3. Turn on access to the WorldCat knowledge base in the WorldCat Services administrative module.
4. For even more efficiencies, set up the Direct Request feature for articles within WorldCat Resource Sharing. (Use of direct request for articles requires an ILLiad subscription or a FirstSearch subscription with WorldCat access.)

• WorldCat Resource Sharing
• At a glance
• Features
• Facts and statistics
• Ordering
• Support, training and documentation