Oregon State's 2009 WorldCat Local report

The WSU Libraries have implemented their WorldCat Local-based search/fulfillment service, WSU WorldCat; it went into production on the Pullman campus on August 24, seven days after the University of Oregon Libraries went public with WorldCat Local. By the end of August, three of the four largest public research institutions in the Pacific Northwest (adding in the University of Washington, a WorldCat Local pilot institution) presented WorldCat Local-based systems as the primary search services on their public web sites. (See UW / UO / WSU respective home pages.)

So what about the fourth major public research institution in the region, Oregon State University? The OSU Libraries and its WorldCat Local Task Force published a redacted copy of a spring 2009 recommendation report, which is available online.

Some thoughts:

-The report recognizes the importance of providing enhanced search and fulfillment services to users - the only question is how to best achieve them.

-The model being followed at OSU is based upon continued local support for the LibraryFind tool, which provides their users with enhanced search services and which support local customization similar to that supported in a web-based ILS interface. The model has positives and negatives: greater service customization support than the WorldCat Local product supports, requiring greater resources to support (again, in comparison to licensing WorldCat Local).

-In approaching this issue, OSU, because of its LibraryFind implementation, was in a fundamentally different position than the other regional public institutions mentioned above.

-The usability testing (performed at OSU) of the UW Libraries' WorldCat Local instance found that users viewed WorldCat Local searching in a very positive way.

-The report identifies issues that are of great interest to my institution, which is now presenting WSU WorldCat as its primary search service: known-title searching (4, 10); limiting searches to specific libraries or collections (4, 9); and, the display of e-resource links within WorldCat Local detailed records (8 - 9). I see the first two as the most important areas-of-improvement needs for us; our SFX-based OpenURL resolver service appears to be enabling effective e-resource access.

-Finally, one point mentioned on page 4 stands out: the fact that information on periodic WorldCat.org interface changes has to be disseminated once OCLC announces an upgrade release. Getting this process routinized at WSU is a key in making the service work.

In summary, I'm glad that this report was posted and I learned a lot from it. Fundamentally, I'm more comfortable with the model of licensing the search/fulfillment system from the cooperative vendor, but there are strengths and weaknesses with each of the two approaches considered in the report.