Open WorldCat and Its Impact on Academic Libraries
Introduction
During the last few years, technology has been advancing at a very rapid pace. Introduction of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, subsequent development of effective search engines such as Yahoo! and Google, and advances in digital technologies helped create a virtual universe of information that is available to all users via the Internet. Information that is made available through the Internet can now be accessed from homes, offices, cafes, airplanes, etc. As traditional library users became increasingly dependent on instant information available via the Internet, they began to lose interest in some of the services that were traditionally offered by libraries.
Librarians began to feel the impact of these changes and initiated debates on how technology is affecting their business and what the response to this challenge might be. In response to these changes in user behavior on the academic level, OCLC and RLG have recently gone beyond making their union catalogs available to library users and made the contents of their databases available to the public at large via the Web.
The present study was undertaken to explore the degree to which libraries and librarians are committed to the idea of having their collections available through the Internet. A large part of the paper focuses on the quality of records in the library OPACs and the potential need to have these records upgraded or enriched, so the remote user can assess their usefulness. The second important theme addresses the issue of un-cataloged collections and the digital document repositories. At this time most of these materials are not represented in the library OPACs and this study attempts to determine if libraries are committed to the idea of providing full access to all of their institutional materials. Digitizing library collections and institutional repositories are addressed in the final parts of the discussion. These two sets of materials have existed outside the traditional library catalogs and the author will attempt to determine how libraries perceive the future of these collections.
Section snippets
Background
Recent technological developments in the area of information processing and dissemination have made a profound impact on ways in which information is accessed. Explosion of information that is available through the Internet is making a huge impact on libraries and their users.
Information that is available through the Internet ranges from scholarly information on the one hand, to answers to quick questions, such as a recipe for a pound cake, on the other. Many academic Web searchers and users
Literature Review
The subject of opening access to the OCLC's WorldCat database through Google is fairly new and the author found relatively little literature that addressed the question directly. Most of what is found in literature consists of announcements, comments on user's perspective, news stories and reports, and exchanges of e-mails.
OCLC's own Web site is the primary and authoritative source of information on this topic. It contains valuable information on topics such as: Open WorldCat Program,8 Quick
Research methodology
Since the opening of OCLC's WorldCat via Google and Yahoo! librarians began to raise questions about the impact this development would have on libraries and their operations? Since libraries are the feeder of the WorldCat database, would they have a role in adapting and facilitating this important transformation of the WorldCat database?
To provide a more in-depth analysis of the issues, the author developed a survey (Appendix A), which was distributed electronically via Zoomerang to the heads
Survey Results
Survey results will be grouped in four parts and discusses as follows:
- Part one:
Provides information about the quality of records; commitments of libraries to cataloging according to standards; cataloging staffing level; and using additional services such as vendor records.
- Part two:
Addresses the issue of un-cataloged collections; commitment of libraries to catalog these materials; the level of cataloging of these material; enriching bibliographic records; and whether libraries are planning to add their entire
Conclusion
The findings of this survey provide important insights into the way ARL library administrators perceive the OCLC Open WorldCat initiative and how they are preparing to handle the potential impact of this new development. Although the prospect of making library collections visible to the whole world via the Internet is likely to have a significant effect on libraries, the survey reveals a rather cautious attitude. Responses to survey questions strongly suggest that most of the ARL libraries are
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank George Klim for reading this article and making valuable comments.
Notes and References (17)
- Stephen Abram, “The Google Opportunity,” Library Journal (February. 1, 2005). Available:...
- Judy Luther, “Google? Metasearching's Promise,” Library Journal (October 1, 2003). Available:...
- “RedLightGreen.” Available: http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID = 433 and dataGo.x=11&dataGo.y=13 (Accessed May 22,...
- Barbara Quint, “OCLC Project Opens WorldCat Records to Google,” InfoToday News Breaks (October 27, 2 003). Available:...
- Barbara Quint, “Yahoo! Search join OCLC Open WorldCat project,” InfoToday News Breaks (July 6, 2004). Available:...
- Barbara Quint, “All of OCLC's WorldCat Heading Toward the Open Web,” InfoToday News Breaks (October 11, 2004)....
- “RLG to Combine with OCLC.” Available: http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200618.htm (Accessed June 6,...
- “Open WorldCat Program.” Available: http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/default.htm (Accessed June 6,...
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