NOTSL Meeting
NOTSL's Spring Program was titled Technical Services: Building the Infrastructure for a Library 2.0 Experience, and the main topic of discussion was OCLC WorldCat.org.
The first presentation, by Mindy Pozenel of OCLC, was titled "This Isn't Your Grandmother's OCLC: WorldCat.org."
She discussed how library websites are competing with sites like Amazon, Google, eBay, and YouTube. She explained that users want features like reviews, ratings, and lists, and users want to be able to make a contribution themselves. She described how Worldcat.org makes it easy for users to identify and locate copies of information they want.
Then, she showed how users can set up a profile and make contributions to Worldcat.org. Since I was taking notes on my notebook computer and the room had wireless, I set up a profile with the username SaraJean Petite and made a list of exercise books I own.
After that, she showed us how one could add a Worldcat link to one’s Facebook profile. I created a Facebook profile and tried it. Unfortunately, I can’t show my facebook profile to anyone besides my facebook “friends.” (If you wish to become one of my Facebook “friends,” my profile is at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1303742345)
The second presentation, Putting a Local Face on WorldCat, was co-presented by Kathy Hughes of the State Library of Ohio and Rebekah Kilzer of OSU.
Both The State Library of Ohio and Ohio State University use WorldCat local as their library catalog. Worldcat local was described as a search interface that operates over a library's catalog. The library maintains its records locally, but at this time, the record that displays in the catalog is the one in the OCLC database. OCLC is exploring a Z39.50 version, which displays a library's local records. According to Ms. Kilzer, students liked WorldCat local because it was easier to use, but faculty and librarians' reaction was "Why change it? The old catalog works fine."
The main issue that came across when the presenters described the challenges of changing to WorldCat local was that it requires a clean database. Records need to have OCLC numbers in them, OCLC holdings need to be set, and duplicate records can cause problems. Items that are not in the OCLC database won't appear in a WorldCat local catalog.
The final presentation was "The Essentials and Non-Essentials: Just a Closer Walk with ILL". This was mostly demonstrations, and a few of the examples had glitches. The thing that impressed me most was that when the system worked, it was very simple for a patron to obtain a copy of an item he/she wanted. If the library had the item, a "request item" button would appear. If OhioLink, but not the library, had it, a button for an OhioLink request would appear. If no OhioLink library had it, a button for ILL would appear.
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