Posts tagged under: Cataloging

More than maintenance: Four reasons to update holdings

Banner image for OCLC Next blog post: More than maintenance: Four reasons to update holdings. Image shows many different household and workshop tools that might often be used in maintenance

We do lots of maintenance tasks in our daily lives. We change tires, clean the HVAC, and inspect our roof and gutters—the list goes on and on. Usually, we do these things to prevent bad things from happening. But have you ever stopped and considered the benefits?

Holdings maintenance—making sure your library’s WorldCat holdings are accurate and up to date—is a good example of how important maintenance is. But there’s still so much more at play. In fact, there are major benefits for your library, your users, and the wider library community.

Read More

Local decision support based on collective intelligence

Local decision support based on collective intelligence

Is there anything more thrilling than finding unexpected, useful answers during an information treasure hunt? While working on a shared print program years ago, I got the chance to use a variety of data sets and programming skills to uncover hidden strengths within library collections. It was important work. That knowledge helped showcase how each library contributed and revealed new ways to leverage collective materials.

The ability to use analytics tools to investigate relationships between the collections of many libraries and come away with actionable, local insights was exhilarating. If that sounds like your kind of treasure hunt, I have good news for you.

Read More

Seven game-changing solutions for libraries

OCLC is accomplishing amazing things. It’s invigorating for all the passionate people who come to work every day to help libraries have more impact. While you may have heard specifics about some of these projects, I invite you to take just a few minutes for a quick overview of seven exciting advances we’re making on behalf of (and often alongside) libraries worldwide. 

There’s a lot to be excited about as we move forward together. Stay tuned for additional updates from OCLC experts about WorldCat quality, collection insights, linked data, and more.

Read More

How do you measure the value of cooperation?

OCLC Next blog header image: How do you measure the value of cooperation?

As the new Executive Director of Metadata and Digital Services, I’m honored to have the chance to work alongside a community of library professionals who believe strongly in improving access to information for all. I’m also thrilled to work with our robust, networked services and proven technology across a global footprint. And I’m proud to join an organization that has supported richer discovery experiences for decades by creating, maintaining, and promoting cooperative and trusted data.

Read More

WorldCat knowledge base: A new infrastructure for e-resource management

worldcat knowledge base banner

The WorldCat knowledge base connects library users to the electronic content provided by their libraries. The latest update is the result of a major multi-year investment that strengthens OCLC’s foundation and provides benefits across many products and services. To learn more about this effort and our commitment to ongoing innovation, please watch a short video featuring Mary Sauer-Games, OCLC’s Vice President of Global Product Management.

Curious about how it works? Take a look at what’s inside WorldCat.

Read More

The cat that didn’t bark

About a year ago, OCLC completed a two-year project (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) with the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) that, among other enhancements, added support for the registration of serial retention commitments in WorldCat. These enhancements not only help improve discovery of shared print data (PDF) across all OCLC services, but also bolster CRL’s Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) and other partner efforts.

At the time that project was completed, we estimated OCLC and its member institutions would register about 15 million commitments over the course of the year. As of today, the community has actually added more than 25 million retention commitments.

Read More

Make your library a hub for open access content

The library that I am entrusted to manage, the Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL), has a clear mission. We aim to make high-quality, open access content in religious studies discoverable to the global community through a single, curated search experience. Even though it may seem like an unreachable goal, I bet you could write a similar mission for your institution.

Fill in the blank:

Our library is committed to making high-quality, open access content in [our area of expertise] discoverable to the global community through a single, curated search experience.

Feels good to imagine, doesn’t it? Well, I’m here to tell you how you can accomplish that goal with very little overhead cost and no increase in staff.

Read More

The Music OCLC Users Group: You say you want an evolution

The Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG), the first and oldest of the OCLC cooperative’s user groups, has spent its 40+ year history working to improve access to music materials in libraries. Often that work has felt like an identity crisis as it sought to reconcile its cataloging-centric origins with its public services evolution. But the dedicated professionals associated with MOUG have kept at it over more than four decades because of the guiding notion that if you can make products and services function well for the complexities of music resources, they will work well for any resources.

Read More

The Dewey Decimal Classification needs you!

ddc_banner_03

The editors of the Dewey Decimal Classification system have always collaborated with librarians to ensure the classification is up to date. Today, we’re excited to share changes that are making the editorial work on Dewey more transparent, inclusive, and responsive to community needs—and we need your help!

Read More

A library collection of mysteries, murder and mayhem

murder-mysteries

This Halloween, let’s take a peek into the Douglas County Historic Research Center (DCHRC) and try to uncover the mysterious connection between these seemingly unrelated yet terrifying clues:

  • A high-profile murder and kidnapping attempt in 1960
  • The burning down of a county courthouse in 1978 during a jail break
  • The near disappearance of local sheriff’s records in 2000
  • A list of every grave marker in town
  • Attics with mysterious, forgotten books

The common thread?

[Cue spooky music] Digital content management!!!

[Cue maniacal laughter]

Read More