Library information provider OCLC, US, has announced that the La Pérouse Library of Ifremer, the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea, has chosen OCLC WorldShare Management Services as its new library management solution and WorldCat Local as its integrated discovery service. Preparations for implementation of both services at Ifremer are already under way.
Ifremer claims to be the first institute in France to implement WorldCat Local and WorldShare Management Services. The Ifremer Library selected these services to better serve its researchers and students with easy discovery and seamless access to resources. The Library also wanted to improve the efficiency of its internal workflows.
A large part of Ifremer's collection consists of electronic resources, so implementation of WorldCat Local can be done quickly. Ifremer's presence in WorldCat provides the library great visibility of its valuable scientific collection by exposing it to a worldwide community of specialists in research. At the same time, the Ifremer collection will remain visible within SUDOC (Système Universitaire de documentation), the cataloguing system for French academic libraries managed by ABES (l'Agence Bibliographique de l'Enseignement Supérieur).
The implementation of both WorldCat Local and WorldShare Management Services is expected to be completed in the first half of 2013. The WorldCat Local discovery service is available as a stand-alone solution and as part of OCLC WorldShare Management Services.
OCLC WorldShare Management Services enable libraries to share infrastructure costs and resources, as well as collaborate in ways that free them from the restrictions of local hardware and software. Libraries using WorldShare Management Services find that they are able to reduce the time needed for traditional tasks and free staff time for higher-priority services.
