OCLC offerings
Since OCLC’s announcement last week I’ve been thinking a lot about the return on investment which libraries get out of their OCLC membership. Partially because I’ve been wondering why some libraries aren’t OCLC members but also because I keep learning about new services that we have access to and which other libraries don’t seem to be aware of or using. So what services am I talking about?
- WorldCat Search API
- xID Services
- WorldCat Identities and the VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) which has had some really cool upgrades made to it
- Terminology Services
- Ability to use OpenURL Gateway service to redirect users to our library resources
- Ability to add detailed information about our library to the WorldCat Registry and access information about other libraries via that registry
- Access to the Metadata Crosswalk Service
OCLC has been able to build all the these services in part due to the vast amounts of library data they have at their disposal. But also, because of the fact that they’ve been dealing with large datasets for quite a while they have a leg up in terms of experience with things of this scale (at least comparably to other vendors). Also, as I’ve said before OCLC ResearchWorks is a veritable fount of cool stuff.
So I’d like to ask those OCLC member libraries not taking advantage of all these tools, why the heck not? The tools are available to you at no additional cost. And though it seemed like OCLC might charge members additional $$ for some of these at first (xID Services for example), this no longer appears to be the case. Also for non-OCLC members, some of this stuff is free for you tool. So what’s holding folks back? Why aren’t you using this stuff? Better yet, what other data would you like to see OCLC supply to its member libraries and maybe other non-profits (potentially at no additional cost)?
My personal wish list?
- Covers and reviews. We currently use Syndetics for covers and I’m sorry to say that the service is at times less than responsive. Talking to other folks using Syndetics we don’t seem to be the only ones who’ve noticed this problem.
- Another data store that would be cool is biographical data about people. Maybe something like the datastore Talis has created from Wikipedia but linked to name authorities and maybe other types of authorities. Biographical, encyclopedic content is a real sticking point when dealing with digital objects because you don’t want in depth information like this in the individual object records because it isn’t sustainable. However, you need a place to put this type of information where you can link to it.
- More information in the registry. Particularly subject liaison information and branch library locations. Also library Z39.50 servers, SRU services and OpenSearch definitions
- Serials holdings data, both electronic and print
Do folks have other wishes or thoughts? If so please comment.
I know of folks using some of these services already, although not always in public facing ways. That’s mostly more due to the difficulty in modifying our front facing services than a reflection on the services themselves.
Xisbn, for example, I have used on a few reports here where we’re trying to compare our collection to a list of materials that are being assigned in classes. For monographs I did a couple different attempts at mapping. Primarily I did two reports ,one that used combination of author and titles pulled from the list and from our indexes. That was largely successful for older material with well established names. Then for the cases of name changes, textbooks,etc I used the list of isbn of the assigned materail we had and then used xisbn to build a list of isbns from different editions etc.
(It would be really cool if you could tweak xisbn further and have it restrict to things like xisbns for the same editions or multiple editions, etc).
I do think one huge obstacle for larger scale and more innovative use of these is simply the lack of research time. R&D time seems very valuable for the type of folks most likely to use these services, a bit of a catch-22. (The amount of knowledge required to use some of them, while not great, is also a barrier as well).
We’ve used a few of these things where applicable but not in any wholesale way. Again, it has to do with our other applicaitons in play and what works and what doesn’t. OCLC is not always good at marketing what is free to members and honestly, we’ve got enough on our plates to manage and handle without having the test each thing out to see if it is now freely available to us or not.
Therefore, when a new project comes along, we don’t automatically think we can use an OCLC tool because we think we’ll be charged for it.
A really awesome replacement for Syndectics is Amazon which is what we use. There’s not the drag of response and we get a credit every time a user clicks through to Amazon from the library. Not that Amazon has this credit system set-up in a way libraries can fully use it with a library purchasing account but still it’ll be there one day & we’ll have a large number of credits banked!
There was some talk at ELAG about OCLC having Work identifiers and a service that makes these available. I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for Jon. But something that gets the paperback, hardcover and audio book of the same edition of a work would be nice.
Thanks for pointing out all of these great OCLC member benefits, Karen. And you’re totally right–there are a number of services, such as the WorldCat Registry, that are open and free to all. (Note the WorldCat Registry is what powers the WorldCat Mobile pilot’s “library lookup” feature. So if you want people to find your library on their mobile phone, update your Registry profile.)
Cover art seems to be a challenge for everyone, these days. WorldCat.org has had to overcome some cover art hurdles in the past, too.
I wanted to ask you more about your wish #2 for biographical data about people. Is it something like a *richer* WorldCat Identities you are after? Or something else entirely?
And to Jill’s point–there are enough things you have to keep track of in your own library, much less keeping track of everything going on at OCLC. And although you can find a lot of information on what is available for programmers on the OCLC Developer Network wiki, we are in the planning stages of upgrading and expanding that site. Besides improving it overall, our aim is for it to be the central location to find everything from code libraries to widgets. As always, we’re interested to know what you would like to see there, and we’ll be asking for specific input from the subscribers to the Developer Network listserv (see the web site above for the link).
Dear Karen:
As the CIO of Bowker, I’m responsible for the Syndetics products technology. I’m sorry you have experienced some performance issues. We at Bowker are very concerned about the quality of our customer’s experience. I would like to talk to you further regarding this issue. Please contact me via phone or E-Mail.
Thanks for your frank comments.
Sy Inwentarz
Sy.Inwentarz@Bowker.com 973-886-0570
I agree with Jill. They changed the pricing for xISBN several times early on it seemed. I tried getting ahold of someone who might know if we had a special deal already. It wasn’t till someone else pointed out a webpage that actually had the breakdown I realized it was no longer an additional charge for members. That’s NOT mentioned on some of the other pages that mention pricing. (If people want I can try digging around and pullling up some of the pages). It gets tiring digging around several places and I’m sure the lawyer folks are going to go with the more conservative of any restriction if two pages conflict.
@Karen – The main issue when I’ve played xISBN is that it can get a lot of related isbns. If xisbn had some way to just stick to one edition or some way to indicate it’s an earlier edition that might be useful. I suppose you could always join that with something different. (For example, different editions of Shakespeare isn’t so big. For textbooks though you might only want recent editions.)
WorldCat Identities is a great resource but it doesn’t exactly do the job which I’m speaking of. Take for example the WorldCat Identities entry (http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-23795) for Donald Barthelme who is University of Houston notable person and our Special Collections have a set of literary papers from. The WorldCat Identities page doesn’t contain any biographical information but links out to wikipedia for this instead. I suppose that the library could use Wikipedia as a source for this type of information but I’m not sure how staff would feel about that. I think incorporating some of this basic info into identities might be of value.
Jon,
Yes, one of the biggest issues I see with Grid Services is the fact that the documentation is not up to date. As a result, there are lots of misconceptions that people have about the services, which result in people not using them. I’ve heard from several folks at OCLC whom I’ve spoke to face to face that they are working on it but its also nice to have Alice say the same thing in the comments here.
Karen