Global library cooperative OCLC, US, and the South West Regional Library Service (SWRLS) have announced a collaboration. The initiative will initially see seven public library authorities in the South West of England using WorldCat Local as their shared end user discovery service in 2010.
Library authorities in Bournemouth, Bath & NE Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Plymouth are working with OCLC to implement a discovery interface. The interface will enable users to search and place reservations on materials held across the South West region. The service is a replacement for Wisdom, formerly supplied by DS Ltd, now part of the Axiell Group. By adopting this approach, the libraries expect to also raise their profile on the web by becoming visible in WorldCat.org, a web destination for the discovery of library resources.
The libraries, through their participation in UnityUK, are already regularly updating their bibliographic and holdings information, which OCLC then uploads to WorldCat. This facilitated records transfer is seen to have opened up the potential for them to utilise services built on the WorldCat platform, including WorldCat Local. The seven SWRLS libraries will have their own individualised web discovery interface reflecting their libraries’ branding and holdings switched on. Each interface will also present real-time holdings information from the other participating libraries to quicken the time it takes for users to locate items of interest.
The decision by libraries in the South West to adopt WorldCat Local as a shared service comes at a time when public libraries across the country are joining up service provision. In September, the Society of Chief Librarians announced an initiative to allow members of a library to borrow books from any of 4,000 libraries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. And, as has been widely reported, the UK government is planning a national request service backed up by home delivery in an attempt to reinvigorate the public’s perception of libraries.
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