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OCLC now offering services for groups

The new services allow consortia to build group online union catalogs and provide resource sharing and reference services under one locally customized interface.

OCLC group catalogs are based on library holdings set in WorldCat. OCLC creates a catalog from WorldCat holdings contributed by group members so that library users can find what they need close to home. If users are unable to find what they need in their local area, they can expand their search to a larger region within the group, or to the entire WorldCat database for what they need. The Military Education and Research Library Network (MERLN) was the first to implement the OCLC group catalog model. A group catalog for Missouri libraries became available in December 2003. This month, library users in Florida will be able to search the collections of all public, community college and state university libraries through the Florida group catalog, a new addition to the Florida Electronic Library.

View the news release
Learn more about group services

Statsbiblioteket enters 132 millionth request into
OCLC ILL service

Created on January 5, the 132 millionth request was for a book on tape, Queen's Play. Statsbiblioteket (State and University Library), Århus, Denmark, is a public library for research and study and serves as the main library for the University of Aarhus and the University Hospital of Århus. The OCLC cooperative is celebrating 25 years of interlibrary loan in 2004. More than 7,000 libraries use the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service, which arranged 9.3 million loans in fiscal year 2002-2003. The 131 millionth request was produced Nov 12, 2003.

Statsbiblioteket

Need info on virtual reference? Take a look at the recently posted proceedings from the 2003 Virtual Reference Desk Conference

Two papers, seven handouts and 34 presentations are now available for download at the Virtual Reference Desk Web site. The conference was held November 17-18.

Among the presentations:

Dynamic Marketing to Targeted Markets, by Marianne Bracke, Science-Engineering Librarian, University of Arizona;
If you ask me, I will tell you! Students reveal their thoughts on virtual reference, by Beth Thomsett-Scott, Science Librarian; Gayla Byerly, Reference Librarian; and Frances May, User Education Librarian, University of North Texas; and
Are you a machine? User perceptions of virtual reference services, by Linda Frederiksen, Access Services Librarian; Nicole Campbell, Reference and Instruction Librarian; and Joel Cummings, Electronic Resources Librarian, Washington State University.

The papers posted are:

Digital Reference Services, Not Just Q and A: An Inclusive Examination of Digital Reference Services, by Henry Bankhead, Graduate Student, San Jose State University; and
Meeting Pedagogical Objectives-the Role of Virtual Reference Librarians as Teachers, by Stephen Marvin, Reference Coordinator, West Chester University and Marianne Hummelshoj, Senior Lecturer, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark.

Other papers not appearing in the online proceedings will be published in a print publication entitled Rounding Out the Reference Experience: Integrating Theory and Practice by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. in 2004.

Go to the VRD 2003 Online Proceedings

OCLC welcomes the following new member libraries

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
Location: Doha, Qatar
OCLC Symbol: WCMCQ
OCLC Network: OCLC PICA

Sons of the Revolution, State of California
Location: Glendale, California, USA
OCLC Symbol: SONRE
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Instituto Politécnico Nacional
Location: San Pedro Zacatenco, Mexico
OCLC Symbol: MXPOL
OCLC Network: OCLC Latin America & the Carribbean

Women & Infants' Hospital of Rhode Island
Location: Providence, Rhode Island, USA
OCLC Symbol: RIWIH
OCLC Network: NELINET

Rhode Island Department of Health
Location: Providence, Rhode Island, USA
OCLC Symbol: RIDOH
OCLC Network: NELINET

The Petroleum Institute
Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
OCLC Symbol: PINST
OCLC Network: OCLC PICA

South African Wine Industry Information & Systems Library
Location: Western Cape, South Africa
OCLC Symbol: ZAWIS
OCLC Network: OCLC PICA

Pearson Peacekeeping Centre
Location: Clementsport, Nova Scotia, Canada
OCLC Symbol: CNPEA
OCLC Network: OCLC Canada

More information about OCLC participating institutions

WorldCat update

Every 12 seconds an OCLC member library adds a new record to WorldCat, which contains more than 54 million records representing 909,340,362 holding locations as of January 17, 2004. Every 4 seconds an OCLC member library fills an interlibrary loan request using WorldCat, which has supported 132,184,624 interlibrary loan requests as of January 17, 2004. A library user searches WorldCat using the OCLC FirstSearch service every second.

See the latest WorldCat record

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