WorldCat @UTImplementing WorldCat Local
Ronda RoweCharleston Conference
November 3, 2010
WorldCat Local from OCLC• A localized version of the OCLC database
• Main index has almost 1 billion records
• Although many fewer unique records
• Tremendous installed customer base
WorldCat Local from OCLC• Article level data (not historically part of
OCLC)
• Some loaded in WCL index
• Some brought in through federated search
• Probably represents the largest challenge
The OCLC database is quite a legacy• WCL has inherited many things from OCLC
• Different cataloging standards
• FRBR
• RDA
• Problems between local and OCLC holdings
• Issues with loading/tagging vendor records
What does OCLC uniquely offer?• Long history of cooperative catalog
• Organization greater than any single library
• Stature to stand with Google
• Ability to reduce redundancy of work
• Ability to pool our knowledge for discovery
• Central service for technical support
Implementation timeline
• First presentation to staff – February 2007
• Implementation begins – May 2007
• First pass all paper based
• Link added to website – June 2009
• Soft-roll out without much fanfare
• Not the default search
Only implemented Discovery piece
• Still have local ILS (Millennium)
• The “back room” is still in the same place
• Still have other resources in place on our site
• Local federated search
• Didn’t add links aside from main search
Response from users somewhat underwhelming
• Usage statistics very low
• In last year, only 14,498 unique visitors
• Compared to over a million searches on our site
• ILL statistics show increase but not tremendous
• Odd statistics to prove success of discovery
• Shouldn’t successful discovery mean more local use?
Statistics might reflect inherent problems
• Traditional content (OPAC) primary focus
• Means that users are primarily discovering MARC records
• Is this what discovery should be?
• Inherent tension between tradition and future
• Google Scholar is cool because it was different
• Search across all content without so many limits
WCL is a mashup of past and future• OPACs usually good for known-item
searching
• If you know what you want, there’s probably an index
• Google is good for “unknown items”
• Type something in and all sorts of things are found
• WCL doesn’t do either thing all that well right now
Is WorldCat Local web scale discovery?
• Web scale means 2 things (Google Scholar)
• Everything in one index (no federated search)
• No authentication for search
• By this standard, not web scale
