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OCLC and MCLS to combine QuestionPoint, 24/7 Reference services

Combined strengths of virtual reference services will broaden membership, deepen knowledge resources for users

OCLC and the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System have agreed to combine QuestionPoint and 24/7 Reference to create a more powerful suite of virtual reference tools that brings together the best features of both services. The agreement for OCLC to acquire the assets of the 24/7 Reference service was signed August 10.

Both QuestionPoint and 24/7 Reference libraries will continue to receive service under terms of their current contracts.

“We are very excited about this opportunity to consolidate two leading virtual reference services in the library community,” said George Needham, Vice President, OCLC Member Services. “The integration of the QuestionPoint and 24/7 Reference cooperatives will enable us to offer a fuller suite of virtual reference services, adding value for all cooperative members.”

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Neil Beagrie, British Library:
“Digital information will never survive by accident”

In an interview with SAP INFO online, Neil Beagrie, British Library and Joint Information Systems Committee Partnership Manager at the British Library, talks about the issues surrounding digital preservation and explains how the knowledge of the 21st century must be preserved as part of the cultural inheritance for future generations. Among his comments:

* In the right conditions papyrus or paper can survive by accident or through benign neglect for centuries. Digital information will never survive and remain accessible by accident: it requires ongoing active management.

* The threat of information loss is very real and insidious and will eat away at the future of our cultural heritage, knowledge economies and information society if we fail to address it.

* Implementation of open standards and archiving-friendly processes is key to ensuring long-term interoperability, migration and archiving of data between systems

Read the entire interview

Two new vendors join PromptCat service

Missing Link and Franklin Book are the newest vendors to participate in the OCLC PromptCat service.

Missing Link, a library material vendor and bookseller in Bremen, Germany, has offices in New Jersey and can supply books and other materials from Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and other European countries.

Franklin Book Co., Inc. is a full-service book vendor to academic, public, corporate and government libraries and provides firm orders, standing orders, approval plans, AV materials, rush orders and shelf-ready processing.

PromptCat is an OCLC automated copy cataloging service where materials ordered through participating material partners arrive with complete MARC records and holdings set in WorldCat.

Missing Link announcement
Franklin Book announcement

OCLC welcomes the following new member libraries

Olympic College
Location: Bremerton, Washington, USA
OCLC Symbol: POULS
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Georgia State University Instructional Technology Center
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
OCLC Symbol: GSULS
OCLC Network: Solinet

Clancy Community Library
Location: Clancy, Montana, USA
OCLC Symbol: CLNCY
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Membership guidelines and protocols

WorldCat update

Every 12 seconds an OCLC member library adds a new record to WorldCat, which contains more than 56 million records representing 931,482,873 holding locations as of August 14, 2004. Every 4 seconds an OCLC member library fills an interlibrary loan request using WorldCat, which has supported 137,676,176 interlibrary loan requests as of August 14, 2004. A library user searches WorldCat using the OCLC FirstSearch service every second.

See the latest WorldCat record

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