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Left brain or right brain?

OCLC and Antarctica Systems, Inc. to test library users’ search preferences

OCLC is launching a pilot to evaluate library users’ experiences with searching and display of search results using a visual interface developed by Antarctica Systems, Inc. The pilot will run from January through April 2005 and will be implemented on a database of electronic books that will be available to all users of the OCLC Base Package and the OCLC Collection on the OCLC FirstSearch service.

Antarctica Systems, Inc. will use its VisualNet data visualization software to create a visual interface to the electronic books database. When users select the electronic books database on FirstSearch, they will be given the option to use the visual interface for searching and viewing results. OCLC will conduct a user survey to gauge feedback during this pilot and will also collect usage statistics that will be evaluated for future applications.

View the pilot interface

Predictions for 2005

From John Battelle, one of the cofounders of Wired Magazine and the founder and former Chair of Standard Media International, publisher of The Industry Standard and TheStandard.com:

Yahoo! and Google will both test systems that combine local merchant inventory information with search, so that merchants can use search as a direct sales channel.
Firefox will near 15% of total browser share.
Microsoft will lose search share before it gains it back later in the year when the integration of MSN search starts to scale with new versions of Office and IE.
Google will introduce Video search, but it will stay in Labs.
Mobile will finally be plugged into the Web in a way that makes sense for the average user.
By the end of the year, there will be no question that search is a media business, and that the major players in search are major players in the content business.

View the predictions

Electronic Collections Online now contains more than 2 million journal articles

OCLC’s Electronic Collections Online database, available through the OCLC FirstSearch service, now contains more than 2 million journal articles in 5,357 electronic journals from 68 publishers.

On January 6, the article “Moving patterns in the Greater Oslo region: Some evidence from a cross-section” in the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, from Kluwer Academic Publishers, was the 2 millionth journal article added to Electronic Collections Online.

Electronic Collections Online provides full-image journal articles on a wide variety of subject matter. A database on the OCLC FirstSearch service, Electronic Collections Online serves as a source of full text that is linked to citations in other FirstSearch databases to support widespread access to libraries’ electronic journal content. A complete list of all publishers and journals included in the database is available.

Electronic Collections Online

OCLC welcomes these new member libraries

The Carl and Mary Koehler History Center
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
OCLC Symbol: CMKHC
OCLC Network: BCR

Fontys Hogescholen
Location: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
OCLC Symbol: NLFNH
OCLC Network: OCLC PICA

Bullivant Houser Bailey PC
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
OCLC Symbol: BHBLI
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Ontarioville Elementary School
Location: Hanover Park, Illinois, USA
OCLC Symbol: ILONE
OCLC Network: ILLINET

Membership guidelines and protocols

WorldCat update

WorldCat is the world’s most comprehensive bibliographic database. Updated at a rate of nearly one new record every 10 seconds, WorldCat contains more than 57 million bibliographic records and holding information contributed by more than 9,000 libraries around the world. The new Open WorldCat Program makes the items in library collections—physical and digital, popular or special—discoverable by people searching the Internet.

See the latest WorldCat record

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