Posts tagged under: Collections

From data to action: Leveraging insights to make more informed collection decisions

“How many books are there on Islamic law?”

This was the deceptively simple question posed by a colleague while brainstorming the potential scope of a digitization project on Islamic legal history. For non-librarians, it might seem like something one could just “look up.” But as you and I know, that kind of analysis only begins with a simple question and branches out into many more complex issues of data analysis, accounting for duplicate titles, different editions, and multiple languages, etc.

But I decided to give it a go and survey a selected number of libraries in North America using the tool Choreo Insights. I published the in-depth results of my findings in another post on the Islamic Law Blog, but today wanted to talk more about the process.

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How linked data can help libraries make more of an impact online

Graphic banner for linked data blog post showing WorldCat Entities linked data text on a futuristic background

In a recent post, I introduced the topic of linked data for libraries and OCLC’s plans for moving forward. Today, let’s dig into the details on how linked data amplifies the knowledge in library collections and the tools we can use to make it happen.

This shift toward linked data isn’t just a technology upgrade, but a long-term strategy for enhancing the findability and accessibility of the important materials that libraries curate and manage. It’s a technical challenge, yes. But I also believe it’s a chance to better promote our values.

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Engage faculty and students with digital collections

There are almost as many reasons for digitizing library collections as there are collections themselves. Public libraries may do so to curate and promote unique local history or culture. Museums, of course, want to make their treasures available for study and enjoyment to people who can’t visit the physical building. And while academic libraries have just as many, varied reasons for beginning a specific digitization project, there’s often a longer-term goal in mind: to promote study and learning around the collection.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Exploring Canadian connections to the published record

canada

At OCLC, we emphasize the importance of connection. Connecting a reader to a book. Connecting a librarian to other librarians. Connecting all libraries, period. In our latest OCLC Research report, we illustrate another kind of connection: connecting creative works to nations.

Maple Leaves: Discovering Canada through the Published Record explores the presence of Canadiana in the collections of libraries around the world. This presence is significant—10.9 million distinct publications all told, rolling up to 6.9 million distinct works, and including materials published in Canada, by Canadians, and/or about Canada.

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On Ireland, library data, and humanities research

2018-03-13_Irish-Report

St. Patrick’s Day is nearly upon us, and our thoughts turn to Ireland and the Irish …

… and to the new OCLC Research report, An Exploration of the Irish Presence in the Published Record, in which we use library data to identify and explore materials by Irish authors, about Ireland, and/or published in Ireland. In this report, we map out the features of the Irish landscape in WorldCat, including the most popular Irish author, as measured by library holdings (Jonathan Swift); the most popular work by an Irish author (Gulliver’s Travels); and the most translated Irish author (Oscar Wilde). Did you know that Northern Ireland-born Eve Bunting is the most popular Irish author in 29 US states? Or that toddler favorite Guess How Much I Love You is the 13th most popular work by an Irish author (Sam McBratney)?

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Guess what topic is tops on our blog this year?

top-topics

Resource sharing is the heart of librarianship. And the heart of OCLC. Whether it’s metadata, workflows, infrastructure, or library materials, sharing is embedded deep in a librarian’s psyche and powered by our technology platform.

It’s no surprise, then, that resource sharing is one of the topics on our blog that always gets the most traffic—this year and last year. This year, our posts on Tipasa, interlibrary loan trends, and shared print collections are among the most popular based on views and visits. Last year, it was interlibrary loan trends as well, along with a contest to name our new ILL management system.

Clearly, after 50 years of the cooperative, the community continues to reinvent resource sharing—making it even easier for more types of libraries and groups to support one another. I invite you to enjoy these posts once again. And to keep on caring about resource sharing.

Resource Sharing is the top #OCLCnext blog topic for 2017. Click To Tweet

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It’s time to reinvent the collective collection

2017-10-10-It's-Time-to-Reinvent-the-Collective-Collection

This year, we are celebrating the cooperative’s 50th anniversary. In 1967, the Ohio library community changed the way they worked together to share their catalogs. It was truly a reinvention of cataloging, resource sharing and library discovery.

Today, as we begin our next 50 years, we are at another turning point that requires a new, even bolder vision. We are building on WorldCat, now the definitive global library collection, to provide library members, groups and regional and national partners even greater capacity to build, manage, and curate the collective collection.

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