The May 2007 meeting was called “Where Wonder Meets Wisdom: Aligning Values in a ‘Cooperative Commonwealth’”. The following report includes topics discussed at the various meetings that should be of interest to OLAC members.
Topic 1: “Future of Bibliographic Control” - Karen Calhoun
Karen Calhoun, OCLC’s new Vice President for Metadata Services, reviewed the challenges facing library catalogs and catalogers in our evolving world--users and their requirements for content continue to change; therefore, library service models, catalogs, and bibliographic control must also change. She provided examples of competitive information sources facing libraries and library catalogs, as well as the importance of digitization projects and linking users to full text rather than just to surrogates in the library catalog. She emphasized the importance of technical services in this transformation; that it is ultimately a very important “public” service. She concluded by saying that libraries are competing for the attention of information seekers, and if library catalogs and catalogers do not change, they risk being marginalized. The focus needs to change from methodologies to user needs.
Discussion and responses:
One person stressed the importance of name authorities in bringing together works of an author. Ms. Calhoun responded that catalogers need to find ways to apply controlled vocabularies in a less costly manner, using technology-assisted techniques.
Topic 2: “Next Generation Cataloging and Metadata Services” - Renee Register
Renee Register, OCLC Global Product Manager, Cataloging and Metadata Services provided information about OCLC’s developing Business Plan resulting from the merger of PromptCat and the Cataloging Partners Program. This plan outlines the following efforts:
This will deliver benefits to both libraries and partners by:
This plan will be presented to the OCLC Strategic Leadership Team on June 5 with a pilot commencing this summer and rollout in early 2008.
Discussion and responses:
Topic 3: “RLG Quality Control Update” - Glenn Patton
Glenn Patton, Director of WorldCat Quality Management, provided an update on OCLC quality control activities and statistics gathered by OCLC staff during the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Change requests increased 109%. Glenn also reviewed “distributed” quality control activities involving OCLC member libraries. These include minimal level upgrade, database enrichment, Enhance, and the BIBCO and CONSER cooperative programs. An Interest Group (IG) member provided examples of records that Mr. Patton and his staff had reviewed. The analysis showed that, of the 168 fields added in local editing, at least 41% could have been added to the WorldCat master record using existing capabilities. Mr. Patton concluded with the following considerations: OCLC should consider adding some additional fields to database enrichment; there should be more publicity for these capabilities; and made the point that the IG member’s library should apply for enhance.
Discussion:
IG members indicated that local workflows need to change the focus from local catalogs to WorldCat, so that WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local have the best possible records.
Topic 4: “Digital Collection Creation for Catalogers” - Judith Cobb
Judith Cobb, Product Manager, Museums and Archives, OCLC Digital Collection Services, reviewed the Content Cooperative Pilot Project, which will end June 30, 2007. Its goal was to explore the interest and value of allowing catalogers using the Connexion cataloging software to add a digital item that could be accessed directly from a WorldCat search. Twelve individual libraries and libraries from two group catalogs participated in the pilot, adding over 5400 digital items, including government documents, images and wide variety of other materials. These items averaged 1,200 hits per month. Ms. Cobb showed a few examples of the materials added during the pilot.
This approach proved to be one of several valuable options for the input of digital items into WorldCat. To follow up on this successful prototype experience, OCLC will be releasing new versions of the Connexion client and CONTENTdm this summer. The new release of the software, planned for September 2007, will allow Connexion users to upload digital items directly into the CONTENTdm digital repository. Ms. Cobb outlined features included in a hosted CONTENTdm license:
Topic 5: “More Hits on Your Primary Source Materials--Here’s How!” - Taylor Surface
Taylor Surface, Global Product Manager, OCLC Digital Collection Services, provided an update on WorldCat harvesting, which allows libraries to have the metadata from their CONTENTdm collections added to WorldCat, allowing these digital collections greater exposure. The process of WorldCat harvesting, which maps metadata to MARC format, is a value-added service that is provided free of charge. OCLC is improving the process in order to provide broader availability of digital collections. The steps include: