Comments on: WorldCat Local — first questions

By: Wilderness Systems Kayak

Wilderness Systems Kayak — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:57:21 +0000

Wilderness Systems Kayak…

So OCLC and the UW finally pulled off the cover and unveiled WorldCat Local to the world. A number [...]…

By: Pat Shufeldt

Pat Shufeldt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:44:10 +0000

Phil Shirley comments about limits to public library listings in OH. In SC there is currently not a single public library listed in Open WorldCat, whereas a lot of tiny libraries in neighboring states are listed. In this region it appears that public libraries are listed if the state library pays for a state-wide contract.

If a single public library in a state licenses FirstSearch on its own, is this going to end up working for, or against, it in terms of the general public’s understanding of where materials are available?

By: Janet Webster

Janet Webster — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:53:05 +0000

Intriguing questions that build on ones we share on the future of ILS/OCLC/access. Your point about the brain drain is well-taken as we do have a dearth of library administrators who truly understand the technology. Time for some of us to move out the way?

By: Erik Hatcher on what's needed « Bibliographic Wilderness

Erik Hatcher on what's needed « Bibliographic Wilderness — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:22:25 +0000

[...] for you. Just plunking your money down for the ‘right’ product from a vendor (Yes, even if that vendor is OCLC!) can not be an end [...]

By: Phil Shirley

Phil Shirley — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:08:08 +0000

Thanks for pointing out that the “find near you” feature ignores the fact that not all libraries are OCLC members. As you say, some libraries are too poor to afford OCLC, but OCLC membership isn’t universal even among well-funded libraries (I’ve worked in two small, well-funded non-OCLC libraries). The the “find an OCLC library” feature on the OCLC web site lists 202 public libraries in Ohio, which is only 80% of the 251 public libraries in Ohio. 20% is a significant gap, and I suspect the gap is bigger in states with traditionally lower funding for public libraries.

By: Jonathan Rochkind

Jonathan Rochkind — Tue, 01 May 2007 21:43:19 +0000

“Well, no — they know if the title exists in your library if your library is an OCLC member and subscribes to FirstSearch.”

An important additional caveat–AND your library has uploaded all their records to OCLC!

If you ask, you will find that even most OCLC members who subscribe to FirstSearch have some classes of records in their local catalog which they do not upload holdings to OCLC for (or don’t upload the records at all, for some local records). I’m curious as to what, if any, such classes UW has currently post-pilot deploy.

I share your concern about brain drain, and about, well OCLC-ization in general.

Many of us have thought for a while that part of the solution has to be giving libraries _more_ flexible access to their catalog data to better integrate services. Worldcat Local doesn’t do this–it’s just another vendor’s product, albeit a _superior_ product to most of it’s competitors as far as public display goes. But I am hacking certain things into my OPAC displays and searches to better integrate my other services (such as link resolver). I can’t do that with Worldcat Local–I can take what _they_ have done to try to integrate better, period, the end. I don’t like this direction. Do they provide me with a reasonable XML interface into Worldcat, even just for my own records? Nope. Do they provide me much ability to customize the display much? Nope. Maybe they will. Do they provide me the ability to add things to the index, or to incorporate a federated search? Only what _they_ have added (they are trying to add article content to WorldCat–whether they will be succesful at getting permission from their competitors to add content that’s not OCLC-licensed to begin with, we will see).

On the other hand, they are providing useful services that I couldn’t provide locally, due to my lack of resources. Maybe their only locally loading data for OCLC-licensed scholarly content, but that’s more than I’ve got.

But I don’t like the either/or choice. Take what the vendor gives you and give up your ability to innovate locally, or to attempt to integrate with your local services in ways the vendor _doesn’t_ provide—but which we want the vendor to provide _hooks_ for. OCLC isn’t providing these hooks either. I don’t like how it smells.