The next steps toward Web scale

OCLC moves discovery, acquisitions and circulation to the cloud to amplify cooperation, reduce costs and create impact

By Tom Storey

In today’s Web environment, scale matters. Through massive concentrations of shared data, applications and connections, communities are leveraging the Web infrastructure to create new services, generate new operating efficiencies and expand relevance to users.

The OCLC cooperative is applying the concept of Web scale—where systems are built and services delivered in the Internet ‘cloud’—to amplify the power of library cooperation and build a significant presence on the Web for the worldwide library community. The goal is to save time and money while simplifying workflows.

What makes OCLC Web-scale services unique?

Standing apart from traditional library management services, OCLC Web-scale services:

• Leverage the size and scope of WorldCat;

• Allow for shareable data about back-office services;

• Work entirely on the Web, eliminating many support issues and basic systems maintenance;

• Integrate discovery, delivery and collection management functions; and

• Are built on a cooperative platform to better share costs and encourage future innovation.

According to our members, the costs of “business as usual” are unacceptably high. Web scale is the next, logical step.

Web-scale management services available to early adopters

OCLC is moving its Web-scale library management services from pilot phase to production with the release of acquisitions and circulation components to a limited number of early adopters.

Since July 1, OCLC has been working with libraries to implement Web-based services for acquisitions and circulation. This will be followed by successive updates for subscription and license management, and cooperative intelligence—analysis and recommendations based on statistics and workflow evaluation among participating libraries.

One of the early adopters is the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret (CPC) Regional Library System in New Bern, North Carolina. Director Jackie Beach says that Web-scale Management Services give their nine libraries freedom, flexibility and participation in a larger library community.

After experiencing a major server crash in 2009 and being without online services for three months, CPC was looking for a way to avoid hosting hardware and constantly dealing with software installs, upgrades and compatibility issues.

“We longed to be free from the tyranny of server dependability,” says Jackie. “This offers us the opportunity to do something that is very user-friendly. Everyone who has seen the service is overwhelmed by its simplicity.”

“We also like the flexibility of a Web-based system, and with an easier-to-use system, we are hoping that we will be able to free up our staff to spend more time focusing on patron services and not all of their time worrying about servers and software and trying to continually stay in the loop of what’s going on.”

Jackie says that Web-scale Management Services should be much more cost-effective since CPC will not have to purchase lots of equipment and in-house hardware. In addition, Jackie said that being the only early adopter on the East Coast, her library group is honored to be an example to the region and to the state to thousands of libraries like them, who all are trying to do more with less and working hard to serve patrons.

“I am blessed with a staff that views innovation as something to jump on and ride as far as we can. They are always open to doing things in a new way, which makes it very easy for me because I don’t have to push the chain, I can pull it. And that makes things go a whole lot better and we are all very excited.

“My biggest problem right now is keeping everyone in the moment because we are already looking a year down the road at what other modules will be available and what we can do next.”

WorldCat Local provides user integration with Web-scale Management Services

Since its introduction in 2008, more than 1,200 OCLC members have signed up for WorldCat Local. Now with the introduction of Web-scale Management Services, WorldCat Local provides Web-scale discovery services that bring new opportunities to increase efficiencies in searching and collection management and reduce costs for libraries.

St. Xavier University Library, Chicago, Illinois, began using WorldCat Local in 2009. Mark Vargas, Library Director, said what sold him on WorldCat Local was its simplicity. Faculty and students expressed a high level of frustration with the tools the library provided to do research, and Mark needed something that would bring together the multitude of databases, journals, catalogs and other resources the library offered, as well as eliminate the time spent teaching patrons how to use all of the different services and systems.

“WorldCat Local takes the drudgery out of discovery,” he said. “It just simplifies things tremendously. It’s intuitive, and students and faculty can run with it.”

“We completely transformed the way we do instruction and we went from three quarters of the time spent on mechanical stuff to basically no time. We’ve eliminated the teaching of the tool and we can push learning. We can spend more time on what research is really supposed to be about, and that is evaluating information and critical thinking skills.”

Looking to the future, Mark sees WorldCat as the center of a system for the library. He’s eager to try some of the other Web-scale components being released to improve back-room functionality, which he thinks will make the information world simpler and more powerful for his staff. “I don’t want to worry about having the most recent version of an ILS installed. That should all be floating in the cloud; that should all become irrelevant.”

Expanding research opportunities for the cooperative | Updates