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Worldwide (English) Change

Members Council Digital Libraries Research Interest Group

Discussion Summary Report

October 2003

Recorder: Sharon Bosarge

  1. Summary of topics & discussions

    2. Following were the topics of the 2 sessions of this interest group meeting.

    • Jay Jordan provided an overview of the "Environmental Scan" and led a discussion

      • The presentation centered on providing background and process followed for producing the recent update to the "environmental scan". Jay presented six "hype cycle" graphs that were included in the scan. The six were:

      • Web services
      • Open-source technologies
      • Knowledge management
      • Information security
      • Library technologies
      • Library metadata

      The first four charts are the work of the Gartner Group. Using that same concept, the last two were prepared by OCLC using group input of the research scientists in the Office of Research. The interest group was impressed with the content of the environmental scan that they've seen so far and are quite interested in seeing the full report. Both Jay and the committee agreed that additional work is needed in analyzing the patron environment and their behaviors.

      The following issues were identified during the discussion:

      • As noted above, the group concurs that the patron environment and behaviors were not sufficiently explored in the environmental scan. The interest group would like an opportunity to see additional analysis of patrons and to discuss this in upcoming meetings.
      • The interest group believes that OCLC should do a retrospective analysis of past product successes and failures so that we might recognize patterns and indicators of potential success as we move forward with new products and services.
      • The interest group would like OCLC to explore methods for pursuing shared or joint environmental scanning/strategic planning activities with member libraries.
    • Heidi Sander and Pat Stevens provided an overview of the "Libraries and the Enhancement of E-learning" white paper.

      • Pat and Heidi provided an overview of the OCLC e-learning task force, the issues discussed by the task force, the e-learning environment within OCLC member institutions and the findings of the task force. The white paper "Libraries and the Enhancement of E-learning" was recently published and is available via the OCLC web site at http://www.oclc.org/index/elearning/default.htm .

      The interest group believes that the white paper will be quite useful. They recognize that institutions and educational groups are publishing e-learning strategy papers that do not include mention or consider the roles of libraries in the e-learning environment. This paper will be a helpful tool to increase the visibility of libraries and the value that they bring to the e-learning landscape.

      Presentation slides are located at http://www.oclc.org/research/memberscouncil/2003-10/sander.ppt (PDF:182K/6slides).

    • Lynn Connaway presented research findings for the Collection Assessment project

      • Lynn, with assistance from Ed O'Neil, Chandra Prabha, and Mark Bendig, presented an overview of their recent work and findings on the Collection Assessment project. Lynn outlined the project that they've undertaken to study the use of WorldCat as a collection assessment/comparison tool. By analyzing WorldCat by library types, average holdings per records, number of holdings, number of records, and relative growth using the holdings of CIC libraries, they were able to perform some interesting comparisons. It was noted that the data seems to provide support for the suspicion that library collections are becoming more and more homogeneous across institutions.

      The interest group saw great potential for these analyses in several areas. Of note was that there is an important role for OCLC to play with regard to identifying important works for preservation. By undertaking collection comparisons across institutions, "last copies" could be identified before they are discarded and potentially lost forever. Group members were also highly interested in the value of the collection assessment and usage data as a management decision-making tool.

      Lynn's presentation slides are located at http://www.oclc.org/research/memberscouncil/2003-10/connaway.ppt (PDF:39MB/61slides).

  2. The group was asked to identify 1-2 significant issues to communicate to Members Council and OCLC. They are:

    • The interest group would like OCLC to explore methods for pursuing shared or joint environmental scanning/strategic planning activities with member libraries.
    • The interest group highly endorses the value of collection assessment and usage data and strongly encourages OCLC to pursue offering these services to libraries as a management decision-making tool.

Please send all inquiries to: Shirley Hyatt