Shyness? Yes, shyness. Along with big data, the convenience imperative, interlibrary loan trends and linked data, shyness was one of the topics on our blog that got the most traffic last year.

The OCLC Next blog launched in February of 2016. Since then, readers have stopped by nearly 60,000 times to check out 54 posts. From those, we’ve chosen five of the most popular to share with you again.

From everyone who’s worked on OCLC Next during its first year…thank you for reading and sharing our work and making the blog so successful! We hope you’ll continue reading. Have a happy holiday season and joyful New Year!

The Top #OCLCnext Blog Posts of 2016 Click To Tweet

Transforming data into impact

by Skip Prichard, OCLC, President and CEO

Of all the data collected in the world, only about half a percent is ever analyzed. And libraries don’t collect data in order to preside over giant vaults of information for its own sake. We do it because library users are trying to learn, to grow, to succeed. Often it’s the insight of librarians that takes the potential stored in our vast collections and helps transform it into action that changes lives. Read more…

#LibrariesInLife: the convenience imperative

by Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., OCLC Senior Research Scientist

We used to bring all our learning, content and media resources to various “watering holes” where folks would gather to consume it. Why? Because it was the fastest way to distribute a wide variety of materials. Now? The content comes to us through digital devices anywhere and at any time. And that repeals a lot of the laws that we grew up with concerning information dissemination and retrieval. Read more…

Four interlibrary loan trends to watch in 2016

by Christa Starck,OCLC Sr. Product Manager, Resource Sharing

Many of the books featured in our list are not just popular…but are best sellers or have been highly publicized. This data proves an important point. While librarians have often thought of ILL as being primarily for unique and rare items, it’s clearly not. Which surprises many non-ILL librarians I talk to. There’s an assumption that ILL is mostly used for hard-to-find or unique materials. And while that certainly is the case, we can now see how important resource sharing is for popular works, too. Read more…

Getting started with linked data

by Roy Tennant, OCLC, Senior Program Officer

“Linked data” is a popular topic at library conferences these days, with overflow crowds wondering what it might mean for their institutions and their personal professional development. Why? Because linked data can be easily understood by computers, resulting in opportunities for improved library workflows, enhanced user experiences, and discovery of library collections through a variety of popular sites and Web services, including Google, Wikipedia and social networks. Read more…

Ranganathan on shyness: Get over it!

by Saskia Leferink, General Manager Benelux, OCLC

“If you want to be a reference librarian, you must learn to overcome not only your shyness but also the shyness of others.” Ranganathan used this quote to describe behavioral change librarians needed to make in his day, when they were transitioning to serving readers from preserving books. Change can be intimidating even when you know it’s needed. But with the support of colleagues and the strength of a community, this very difficult task becomes doable. Read more…

The Top #OCLCnext Blog Posts of 2016 Click To Tweet