Computer library service and research organisation OCLC, US, has announced two more implementations of its WorldCat Local discovery service at libraries in the UK and Ireland. According to OCLC, libraries across Europe are responding positively to WorldCat Local's ability to connect users to 800 million electronic, digital and physical resources held in library collections locally and globally, via a single search box.
In Ireland, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology's (IADT) WorldCat Local implementation is on track to launch in time for the new academic year this September. Recently, the Irish educational landscape has undergone and continues to experience significant change. One of the many challenges facing those in the sector like IADT is finding more efficient ways of delivering knowledge to its users.
WorldCat Local's ability to search multiple catalogues, systems and e-resources simultaneously is also cited by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as an important factor in its decision to implement the service. NERC went live with WorldCat Local in May and is reporting positive feedback from users.
NERC's library collections, dispersed across a number of Research Centres throughout the UK, reflect the breadth and depth of research in the environmental sciences over recent decades. Use of the collections had waned in favour of desktop access to the growing volume of scientific research materials available online.
Over the past year, NERC implemented a major project to merge the library systems, services, collections and staff of its Research Centre libraries. Three of these (the British Antarctic Survey, the British Geological Survey and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), made the decision to retain OCLC's OLIB library management system, becoming the first OLIB user in the UK to adopt WorldCat Local.
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