[WEB4LIB] RE: Open WorldCat Pilot: A User's Perspective

[Nilges,Chip]

Laura,

Thanks for your post about Open WorldCat.  In response to your 2
questions from late last week . . .

Question 1:  Now that you've begun the process of handing over WorldCat
to successful businesses that will provide free access to its contents,
when will OCLC stop charging libraries (who of course provide this
content) for access to WorldCat through FirstSearch? 

First, let me be very clear on one point:  we did not "hand" WorldCat
over to anyone!  (We take our job as stewards of the membership's assets
very seriously.)  We've made a subset of records available to selected
partners, and we have released only a small portion of each record to
the partner -- only as much metadata as is needed to support effective
discovery of library materials within the partner's sites. Moreover, our
contracts with partners protect the rights of OCLC and its membership to
this content.  It's also important to understand that none of the
holdings data is being supplied to partners. Users who encounter
WorldCat metadata on a partner site and opt to click on the link come to
an OCLC server for access to holdings information and links to local
library services. 

The second half of the question, regarding funding models, is
interesting. Currently, WorldCat is a "paid search" service.  Libraries
purchase subscriptions, which entitle them to provide access to staff
and patrons affiliated with their institution.  Open WorldCat extends
this model by placing pointers to library collections in open Web sites
and directing users who encounter those pointers back to the library for
service.  In other words, Open WorldCat is a directory service:
libraries can use it to make their collections known and available to
patrons from popular search engines and Web sites, where patrons often
begin their search for information.  We view the two services --
WorldCat on FirstSearch and Open WorldCat -- as two sides of the same
"discovery" coin.  WorldCat on FirstSearch is a "private" service that
is highly configurable and supports very sophisticated searching, alone
and in combination with other databases.  Open WorldCat is an outreach
program, which alerts the Web surfer to the availability of library
materials and connects them to the library for local service.  The Web
demands both approaches:  a vertical search site (WorldCat), tailored to
the discovery needs of the community; and a syndication program (Open
WorldCat) that seeks to integrate library collections at the point of
need in other services.  Because of this necessary symbiosis between
WorldCat as a library search tool and WorldCat as a library
"syndication" cooperative, we are including participation in Open
WorldCat as part of a library's subscription to WorldCat on FirstSearch.


Question 2:  What, if any, financial gain is OCLC receiving from its
partnership with Google, Yahoo and other partners? This would be of
interest to those of us following open access scholarship.

To date, the project has been a learning experience for all involved.
We've devoted resources to this project, and so have our partners.  This
doesn't rule out the possibility that we will consider employing what
have become traditional models for generating revenue on the Open Web,
if these approaches create value for the community we serve.  An
increasing number of libraries are partnering with best-in-class
commercial entities, in an effort to improve patron service and fund
their activities.  If the integration of WorldCat with the open Web
creates opportunities to provide the membership opportunities to deliver
improved service through a commercial partnership, we'll consider them.


I hope this helps, Laura.  I would be very interested to hear ideas
anyone on the list may have on either or both of theses questions.  

Chip

Chip Nilges
OCLC 



-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Laura Cohen
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 10:34 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Open WorldCat Pilot: A User's Perspective


Chip and Mike:

Interesting posting. This leads me to a couple of questions about the
financial side of things.

1. Now that you've begun the process of handing over WorldCat to
successful businesses that will provide free access to its contents,
when will OCLC stop charging libraries (who of course provide this
content) for access to WorldCat through FirstSearch? 

2. What, if any, financial gain is OCLC receiving from its partnership
with Google, Yahoo and other partners? This would be of interest to
those of us following open access scholarship.

------------------------------------------
Laura B. Cohen
Library Web Administrator
LI-140 University at Albany
Albany, NY 12222
Tel:  (518) 442-3492  Fax: (518) 442-3567



Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 13:23:49 -0500
From: "Teets,Mike" <teetsm at oclc.org>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Subject: RE: Open WorldCat Pilot: A User's Perspective
Message-ID:
<35A72025A61EE3488E4CF824C717F70EA607FB at OAEXCH1SERVER.oa.oclc.org>

Open WorldCat is a work in progress.  We launched the project almost one
year ago with a simple goal -- to help libraries make their collections
visible and available at the point of need on the open Web.  Since that
time, we've made a number of enhancements, some planned and others in
response to requests from the membership/library community.   

Some recent developments:

-  A few weeks ago, we posted the entire Worldcat collection of 57
million records for harvesting by the search engines. (Before then, only
2 million records were available for harvest.) Additional records will
begin appearing as the search engines incorporate them into their
systems.   

-  Earlier in November, we added hot linked subject headings that users
can follow to view a list of all items with the same subject heading in
Open WorldCat, in order to facilitate subject access to WorldCat.  

-  In December and January we will begin adding features to address the
issue addressed in the post below regarding grouping holdings for
multiple iterations/versions of an item.  These features will include
the ability to retrieve and see holdings for other items with the same
author & title and, possibly, hot-linked author and titles.  We are also
thinking about applications of XISBN, which returns a list of associated
ISBNs for a given ISBN, and the FRBR algorithm for reducing duplicate
records.  

- In the next few weeks, we will be providing a section of the Open
Worldcat informational page featuring user contributed "cool tools"
based on Open Worldcat.  It will be at the same location
http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/default.htm

-  On an ongoing basis, we are talking regularly with potential new
partners for Open WorldCat and are actively building our directories of
OPAC and OpenURL links, in an effort to improve the likelihood that user
who encounters Open WorldCat will be able to get to a local libraries
catalog or OpenURL resolver for service. (Any OCLC member library can
update their links at https://www3.oclc.org/app/openwc/ )  We are also
doing some manual creation of these links as time allows.

This has been a very interesting project for us at OCLC.  We hope that
it is providing the community with a valuable service, and that it is
also serving as a catalyst for further exploration of the huge potential
for collaboration that we believe exists between libraries and open Web
information sites.  We are very happy to see the interest the project
has generated, through discussion like this one, comments from users,
and the rapid growth in activity we've seen over the past few months.
Libraries obviously have a central role to play in public access to
information, and it is our job to help in any way that we can.  

Chip Nilges, nilgesc at oclc.org
Executive Director, WorldCat Content & Global Access

Mike Teets, teetsm at oclc.org
Executive Director, Product Architecture and Development

------------------------------------------
Laura B. Cohen
Library Web Administrator
LI-140 University at Albany
Albany, NY 12222
Tel:  (518) 442-3492  Fax: (518) 442-3567