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Overview

Your time is a cost; using WorldCat Resource Sharing in addition to your primary ILL arrangement means you will spend less time locating materials.

There is no need to wade through a myriad of multiple, overlapping databases. Instead powerful WorldCat® searching finds you resource options locally, regionally and beyond, and does it all at once from a comprehensive database core of more than one billion holdings—both physical and digital—crossing all manner of subjects, languages, cultures and uniqueness.

Increase your collection’s visibility

In addition, become a part of WorldCat, and your library adds its holdings to the world’s largest and most comprehensive catalogue. With over 140 million bibliographic records that represent more than 1 billion individual items held by participating institutions, patrons and Web users find what they’re looking for, and your staff benefits from significantly increased hit rates in their cataloguing and resource-sharing activities.

Authoritative and efficient features

Whether you handle low volume or high volume, occasional requests or seasonal bursts of activity, the components of WorldCat Resource Sharing add up to comprehensive resource coverage and faster processing.

You’ll save even more time with features that better manage or automate fulfilment; while filters ensure you receive requests only for items you own and supply.

WorldCat search: Helpful to newcomers, powerful for everyone

Your staff locates resources with robust WorldCat searching. Basic, advanced and expert level search screens match skill level to search complexity. Browsing of subject headings and “more like this” suggestions let novices find their way. More savvy users can hone their searches with a wide variety of indices and limiters; special search methods such as Boolean combinations and logical strings; plus ranking, sorting and breakdown of results by format.

Article Exchange: Secure, copyright-compliant delivery of document files

Remove the guess-work from delivery of large files such as articles and book chapters to your users.  ArticleExchange lets you place files up to 60 MB on a secure site for pick-up by authorised users.  The site supports the following file types: BMP, GIF,J2K, JIF, JFI, JFIF, JP2,JPE, JPEG, JPF, JPM, JPX, JPG, MDI, MJ2, PEG/JFIF, JPEG 2000, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIF, TIFF, TGA, TPIC and WEBP.

Automatic deletion of viewed documents after 5 days, and unviewed documents after 30 days ensures compliance with standard copyright rules.

Request Manager:  See everything that’s happening

The staff view’s control panel for all sharing activities, the Request Manager clearly summarises current sharing tasks that require action. Request Manager lets you search all task workforms by key criteria, batch-update requests and batchprint requests by category.

Simplify your billing with Integrated Fee Management (IFM)

Save both time and money: Use the Integrated Fee Management (IFM) feature of WorldCat Resource Sharing and you reconcile resource sharing charges and receipts directly through your monthly OCLC invoice.

Often complicated payment issues can prohibit going outside of your primary resource sharing network to satisfy ILL requests. However, through IFM you’ll eliminate invoices and cheque writing to individual lending partners in different currencies, meaning significant cost savings on each request.

By letting OCLC do the paperwork for you, whenever you have ILL bills and payments from other Integrated Fee Management participants, you save money, your staff saves time and everyone can focus on accomplishing other library priorities.

Policies Directory:  Set your rules for requests

You have one-click access to the OCLC Policies Directory, where you can review the lending and copying policies of other libraries participating in WorldCat Resource Sharing, plus their billing system and contact information.

Publish your own policies as well, to reduce the number of unfulfillable requests you receive.

Item-level policies based on local holdings records

Use custom holdings groups and data in the local holdings records to search and select more accurate lender strings based on information entered by participating libraries (when libraries’ detailed local holdings information is up-to-date in WorldCat). Detailed settings in the local holdings record also allow lenders to designate item-level policies for copying and loaning materials, ensuring that lenders do not receive requests for items they are unable to fulfill.

E-books for short-term access

Expand access to library content available through WorldCat Resource Sharing to include access to a subset of e-books from Ingram's MyiLibrary e-book collection for a nine day period. The option will be available in ILLiad within the next several months. Get more information ››

More: Data re-use, reports

Save and reapply commonly used data, such as workform templates (constant data), frequent lenders (custom holdings) and boilerplate text (conditional notes). And see the big picture with reports and raw data that show your fulfillment rates, borrowing/lending ratios and other statistics that can be used to justify expenditures and further improve service.

Simple pricing matched to your situation

The goal of OCLC’s global cooperative has always been to lower information costs for libraries and groups, regardless of size or level of sharing activity. WorldCat Resource Sharing continues this tradition with a single, annual subscription fee that is customised to your needs and prevents extra charges due to sudden spikes in usage.

Evaluate borrowing and lending data using WorldCat Collection Analysis

WorldCat Collection Analysis lets you analyse your collection and compare it to other collections without requiring you to expend extensive staff, time, or financial resources. Using it, you are better able to shape your collection development activities and provide solid evidence to justify funding. Enhancements to WorldCat Collection Analysis give individual subscribers the ability to:

  • Compare borrowing requests over time to identify acquisition priorities
  • Compare borrowing requests based on age, subject, serial and nonserial items
  • Analyse what your library borrows—items that supplement your collection
  • Analyse the items your library is lending—revealing how your collection is used