Posts tagged under: Technology

The new WorldCat.org expands the impact of libraries everywhere

Seven years ago, I was the director of e-commerce development for a global brand with more than $USD 2.5 billion in sales, 500 stores, and nearly 12,000 employees. Then I found WorldCat.org.

It was love at first search as I’ve always been a superfan of libraries. I saw the fundamentals of my chosen career—improving online services, intuitive interface design, and an exceptional user experience—put to use in the service of libraries. That moment moved me to join OCLC.

Today I can say, without hesitation, that our recently rolled-out work to reimagine, redesign, and rebuild WorldCat.org has been the highlight of my career.

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

Controlled digital lending: Past successes can guide our future

When the COVID-19 pandemic created barriers to traditional information access, library workers reacted immediately to help make up the difference. I don’t think I’ve talked to a single person whose library didn’t put forward major, sometimes dramatic efforts to ramp up “anytime, anywhere” access to resources. And that includes forays into controlled digital lending (CDL).

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

Women in technology: We are all stakeholders

Since its inception in 2017, OCLC’s DevConnect series has been focused on library technology. Over the years, we’ve shared presentations that focus on the things that drive library innovation—specific APIs, projects, and code. However, the team that produces the DevConnect series is co-ed, and this year we wanted to focus on the people who move the field forward.

Read More

Mitigate cybersecurity threats with training

Computer and internet technologies have brought valuable opportunities and efficiencies to the library and education fields. Unfortunately, this kind of innovation often also brings challenges, especially with security. And although every organization tackles cybersecurity differently, there’s one common denominator. When it comes to security, everyone in your organization plays a role—often a critical one.

Read More

Three ways mobile app technology increases community engagement

As I’ve pulled together notes for this post, 15 alerts have flashed across my smartphone screen. That’s to be expected since we log 5.4 hours a day on our phones. And most of that time—90 percent to be exact—is spent using apps. That begs an important question: How can we use this app time to promote library goals and engage our communities in ways that put the library in the life of the user?

One important step? Simply get more library apps into the hands of users, a goal that we are pursuing quickly—and globally—now that Capira Technologies has joined the OCLC family.

Read More

How your library will benefit from linked data

In January 2020, OCLC announced that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation had awarded us a grant to build a shared entity management structure that supports libraries as we move toward new ways to create and share information about their collections. These new methods—commonly referred to as “linked data”—represent changes to both underlying library data and the type of activities that library workers perform.

Even more importantly, they also signal a shift in how the library community can work together to build on each other’s work. I believe that no matter what type of library you are associated with, you and your users will benefit from this project.

Read More

Sometimes, to change anything … you have to change everything

ACPL_banner

Change management is never easy, that’s why it’s often tackled in bite-size chunks. To be successful, it has to be intentional and collaborative. And for a public library, defining change can’t just depend on the director’s vision. It has to belong to the entire organization and be driven by the needs of the community.

We recently wrapped up the challenging—but energizing—task of developing a detailed strategic plan. This was a first step in changing the way we do business. We’ll still do many of the same things we’ve always done, but our perspective has shifted to place the customer firmly in the center of everything we do.

Read More