2. “ So what’s OCLC up to now?” Tidewater Consortium July 22, 2009 George Needham Vice President, Global and Regional Councils
3. “ It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” — Charles Darwin
17. OCLC Reports Reports available for free download at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/reports/
18. The support pyramid Chronic Nonvoters Super Supporters Greater Good Kid- Driven Library as Office Just for Fun Look to Libns Financially Strapped Detached The Web Wins Nonvoters Probable Supporters Super Supporters Barriers to Support From Awareness to Funding (OCLC, 2008).
29. Building library Web-scale Create a compelling user environment Increase OCLC’s global relevance and position of trust Create system-wide efficiencies in library management Make OCLC Web Services a valued part of library operations
30.
31.
32. WorldCat: Growing faster than ever! 139 million records 1.45 billion holdings As of July 20, 2009
34. The collective collection 1.8 billion items and growing! 139 million bib records 3.6 million digital items 1.45 billion holdings 320 million electronic database records 27 million items (Google, Hathi Trust, OAIster) Physical holdings in WorldCat Licensed digital content in library collections Local library content being digitized
As you know, 2009 marks the 200 th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Darwin is often misquoted as claiming that “survival of the fittest” determines the prevailing species and structures. But this is his accurate quote. Adaptability is going to be the key to survival for libraries over the next few years, and one of the ways I like to adapt is by paying attention to the Beloit College Mindset List.
Are you familiar with the Beloit College Mindset list? This is the work of two faculty members at Beloit College, who, each year, produce a list of ideas, experiences, and “common knowledge” that’s common to the incoming freshman class at Beloit. Here are few examples from this year’s list.
For example, for the class of 2012, Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
In their lifetimes, IBM has never made a typewriter.
Time and Warner have always been together. And the less said about AOL the better.
Radio and television stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
And Sammy Davis, Jr., Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jim Henson have always been dead.
The reason I love the Beloit Mindset list is that it helps me recalibrate my thinking. It helps me take a fresh look at the ideas that I’ve accepted too easily and without question. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
One of the things that scares me about this profession I love so much is our willingness to rest on our laurels and to assume that no matter what else happens externally, nothing much is going to change in our world. I see a lot of people hunkering down to weather this recession, or putting in their time until retirement, or otherwise trying to avoid or ignore what’s going on around them. I don’t think we can afford this kind of thinking. And I know our users can’t! To help recalibrate the way we think about libraries, OCLC has published a number of reports over the past few years.
The environmental scan was our first major book, and it looked at how the world had changed from the point of view of OCLC and librarians. Self-Service Disaggregation Collaboration
The perceptions report looked at how the public, specifically the online public, perceived libraries in a world of multiple information resources and options.
“ Sharing, Privacy, and Trust,” published in 2007, discussed how the new media, especially social networking media like Facebook and Flickr, had come to be so widely popular, trusted as a vehicle for communication, information, and entertainment, and the implications of this popularity on library practice.
Then last July, we published “From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America.” This report was a joint effort of OCLC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Leo Burnett Agency. Today’s remarks are going to focus on the latest report, but I will draw from the other three reports to help crystallize some of the points.
Book discusses the demographics of each of these populations and how to approach them But one of the hardest truths in this book is one of the most counterintuitive.
The people who are most likely to support your library in a bond issue or levy campaign are not necessarily those who visit your library, either once a year or once a week. In fact, the study found no correlation between library use and library support. Why is this? Well, your regular users may think that things are fine just as they are. They use you every week, and they haven’t seen any big problems (maybe because you’ve done such a good job covering them up). Maybe they don’t want things to change. The harder question is why people who don’t use the library would be willing to fund it. That goes to the concept of the greater good. There are those who feel that a common levy to support a service that is available to all is an expression of democracy. There are those who feel that they are well off and don’t need the library, but they think it is a good thing to make library service available to the rest of the population. Because this dynamic was so prevalent in what we heard, the folks at Burnett delved deeper into this question, and developed five attributes that can make a better case for your library. In my opinion, these are not only good marketing strategies, they are also good management strategies. And these strategies are what I will focus the rest of these remarks on.
Change in the value proposition for libraries Facilitate browsing: Make it easy for people to be successful Effective merchandising Boutique environments for community-based collections Place the emphasis on hospitality: This is pass/fail Cleanliness Welcoming staff Reduced clutter Simplified layouts, signage Go green. It’s a way to show you’re part of the community, and you’re already the world’s premiere recyclers
Question to contemplate: Do you have rules, procedures or policies that you have to keep repeating, over and over? If so, it may not be the customer’s fault! Westerville Public Library’s “No” rule Expectations are shaped by the other services people use: Google, Amazon, Netflix Bottom line: less gate-keeping, more convenience
Libraries are no longer the only game in town for information, but that doesn’t mean they’re optional. Especially true when times are tough – demand goes up. (State of Washington report on PL use) Proactive customer engagement: Help where, when, and how customers need it High touch, concierge-style services to handle exceptions Staff share their expertise with each other to provide the best possible customer service Collaborative learning environments: what used to be called cheating is now standard operating procedure in education Embedded librarians
We are not a charity, or a poor relation. Return on investment is in the eye of the customer, not in how we define the benefits the customer receives. Also, ROI is not necessarily dollar for dollar, but in perceived value: Are we using the taxpayer’s money wisely? Maximize staff effectiveness: Get out from behind the desk or out of the backroom Simplify, speed up, and improve self-directed processes Empower staff to resolve issues on the spot Offer appointments Harness the power of the public: Assume self directed service – public handles routine transactions, staff are there to ADD VALUE Your work becomes more creative, less routine – lower risk of repetitive stress injuries Reuse your work whenever possible: Podcasts Streaming video
Ever notice how elected officials talk about when they were kids in the library? Nostalgia may be our enemy. Default to kids Embrace the change in reading: Staff at all levels trained in readers’ advisory Customer-contributed book reviews and reading recommendations Early adoption of new formats Most important: Reading advocacy Build for mobile services End of the OPAC as we’ve known: build around the search engine model Social networking, but don’t build a new blog or social site, insinuate yourself into the ones that are already out there! No more one right answer Eliminate binary thinking Tolerance for mistakes Tolerance for ambiguity
Omar Wasow story The person who comes in for help with a resume doesn’t just want a resume – wants a job! How does that person’s relationship with the library help him or her take the next step in life? Challenge is not getting materials out the door, but getting community back in the door. Start to measure success in terms of outcomes and repeat business. Bottom line: Relationships trump transactions! Storm story if there’s time.
Bottom line: Relationships trump transactions
Now that we know this, what do we know? And more importantly, what do we do with the knowledge?
From Bits Of Destruction Hit the Book Publishing Business: Part 1, written by Bernard Lunn / July 15, 2009 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bits_of_destruction_hit_book_publishing_part1.php The Three Big Waves Hitting the Industry One massive wave crashing down is confusing enough. But when three crash at the same time, even seeing what's going on (let alone predicting how things will play out) becomes really difficult. These three big new waves are: The digitization of print books by Google Book Search. Increasing consumer acceptance of e-books, mostly because of the Kindle. Print on demand What Will Readers Get? Readers have the money that makes all of this happen, so they will, eventually, get what they want, which is: Broad selection of titles, Choice of format and device, Fast delivery, Low prices, Freemium model. In other words, readers will be able to order any book in the universe and have it sent to them in print wherever they want or sent digitally to whatever device they have. Readers have grown accustomed to getting their online content for free, so they will expect to get at least a degraded experience via the regular browser (the "free" in freemium).
Our strategy can be summed up as “Building Web-scale for libraries.” To do this, we are focusing on four broad objectives. Create a compelling user environment Make WorldCat Grid Services a valued part of library operations Increase OCLC’s global relevance and position of trust Create system-wide efficiencies in library management These objectives complement each other. Together, they are taking us to the next-generation of OCLC services. Let’s explore the concept of Web-scale a bit further.
Web-scale means concentrating computer resources, applications and data to deliver benefits to large numbers of users through the Web. What does it mean for libraries? Increased visibility and accessibility collections for users, combined with Reduced duplication of effort from networked technical services and collection management, supported by Streamlined workflows, realigned and optimized to benefit fully from network participation Cooperative intelligence and improved service levels enabled by the large scale aggregation of usage data For the OCLC cooperative, Web-scale means the more libraries, the more records, the more network effects, the more value for everyone.
What do end-users want in an online catalog? What do librarians want? Will the twain ever meet? To answer these questions, OCLC conducted some market research. We used focus groups, a pop-up survey on WorldCat.org, and a Web-based survey of librarians worldwide. We have recently released a membership report on this research. You can see some of the findings on the slide They suggest two approaches to information organization at work—one from librarianship and one from the Web. What is needed now is to integrate the best of both worlds in new, expanded definitions of what “quality” means in library online catalogs. The report is available for free download at this URL. In the first two days the report was on the OCLC Web site, it was downloaded over 2,000 times! There is also a printed version for a nominal fee.
At the heart of this strategy is WorldCat. It’s been creating system-wide efficiencies since it went live on August 26, 1971. WorldCat just hit 139 million records, and the holdings are now at about 1.45 billion.
WorldCat is now growing even faster than last year, when libraries set a new high by adding 22.2 million records. We started fiscal 2009 with 108 million records. For the fiscal year that just ended on June 30, libraries added an impressive 31 million records to WorldCat.
We are trying to extend WorldCat and represent the collective collection of the OCLC cooperative, including physical holdings such as books and journals, licensed digital content, and the growing array of local content that is being digitized. We began adding article metadata to WorldCat a few years ago. We have been systematically indexing entire databases in WorldCat Local, beginning with FirstSearch databases and moving on to content that we don’t host, such as EBSCO and JSTOR. All the records in these databases will be represented, not just the article records. We are also reaching out to others to synchronize their data with WorldCat: eBook providers, OAIster, CONTENTdm, Google Books, and Hathi Trust, to name a few.
OCLC has launched new OCLC Metadata Services for Publishers, which is based on the Next Generation Cataloging pilot. The service enriches publisher ONIX title metadata, supports the early addition of new title metadata to WorldCat, and enhances quality and consistency in upstream title metadata. It’s crucial to the future of publishers and libraries that we move toward collaborative, creative and networked use of publisher and library metadata for the benefit of multiple user communities. The end result is that libraries and their users benefit from more timely display of bibliographic information.
Our first major initiative in creating a compelling user environment began in 2006 with WorldCat.org. This search box made collections in OCLC member libraries visible on the Internet to people everywhere. The goal is to have a person who is searching for information on the Internet using a search engine to end up in a library.
You can see that WorldCat.org is experiencing steady growth. Last fiscal year, over 10 million searches started out on the Web and ended up in a library service. We are clearly increasing the visibility of libraries on the Web. You can also see from the list on the screen that we have been continuously enhancing WorldCat.org to make the user experience even more compelling. Enhancements: WorldCat Identities Google Books API Lists Tagging Reviews Ratings RSS List watching User-to-library affiliation weRead recommendations Facebook apps Search box widgets
Soon, OCLC will offer all of its electronic resource services on a single discovery platform with a single user interface — WorldCat.org. This means that you will have access though a single search box to these resources: FirstSearch databases Electronic Collections Online eJournals NetLibrary eBooks and eAudiobooks CAMIO art museum images, and ArchiveGrid archival collection descriptions. This enhancement will be transparent to library staff and will not require adjustments to existing eContent purchases. This will be a dramatic change to the user interface.
Earlier this year, we started a pilot program in the U.S. and Canada to make collections from libraries visible through mobile devices. It allows users to search for and find books and other materials available in libraries near them through a Web application they can access from their PDA or smart phone. We have just extended the pilot to France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It will run for another six months. The pilot is based on WorldCat.org. Users can even get a Google Maps view of the library location along with detailed driving instructions if their device supports the application. The pilot will gather data to inform and help shape future mobile access to WorldCat.org.
In order to participate in WorldCat.org, you have to a subscription to WorldCat on FirstSearch, either singly or through a consortium. As you know, OCLC has expanded the FirstSearch base package. It now includes an entry-scale, hosted version of CONTENTdm for digital collection management.
With WorldCat Local, we are creating a compelling user environment that provides a single interface to the collections of a library. WorldCat Local enables a library or group of libraries to customize WorldCat.org as a solution for local discovery and delivery services. It interoperates with locally maintained services such as circulation, resource sharing and resolution to full text to create an integrated experience for library users.
Most recently, OCLC and EBSCO have signed an agreement that makes it possible for libraries that subscribe to both WorldCat Local and EBSCOhost services to provide their users with easy online access to the full text of a wide range of authoritative electronic content through the Web. As part of the WorldCat.org Partner Program, EBSCO’s authoritative content, which includes some of the most popular databases in libraries, will be more visible to library patrons through WorldCat Local. This is an important addition to the Partner Program.
The Hathi Trust has signed a preliminary agreement with OCLC to collaborate in adapting OCLC’s WorldCat Local as a public discovery interface for its digital repository that contains more than 2.5 million digitized volumes from the nation’s research libraries. We will work with Hathi partner libraries on specifications, with a goal of deploying the interface in early 2010. In the meantime, Hathi is deploying a temporary public beta using VuFind. OCLC’s Roy Tennant recently interviewed John Price Wilkin, Executive Director, Hathi Trust for an podcast that you can listen to at the OCLC Web site. John makes an amazing prediction that there will be 15 million volumes online at the Hathi Trust in 3-4 years. John also talks about "the silence of the archive" and the issues that poses for those interested in preserving our cultural heritage. We at OCLC are pleased and honored to be working with the Hathi Trust on this important project.
The University of Michigan and OCLC have formed a partnership to ensure continued public access to open-archive collections through the OAIster database of over 19 million records contributed by over 1,000 organizations worldwide. The OAIster database is now available on FirstSearch at no additional charge in all FirstSearch Base Package subscriptions. At a future date, as permitted by OAIster contributors, OCLC will index harvested records into WorldCat.org, which will replace OAIster.org as the public interface for discovery and access to open archive collections. Until this change takes place, OAIster.org will continue to function as the public interface to OAIster collections through funding provided by OCLC to the University of Michigan.
On April 23, we publicly announced our strategy to move library management services to Web scale. It created quite a stir, at least in the U.S. library press and community. Our goal is to lower the total cost of managing library collections while enhancing the library user’s experience. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of member libraries that participated in WorldCat Local pilots and those that became early adopters, we now have the opportunity to accelerate the movement of library management services to Web scale through ‘quick start’ and additional services .
With WorldCat Local "quick start," your users will see a URL, search box and interface that reflect your library's branding. They will also see the resources your library has in WorldCat; your local resources are listed first in the search results. If you subscribe to WorldCat on FirstSearch, your WorldCat Local Quick Start configuration is already out there, waiting for you to activate it. Your staff complete the configuration and turn it on, and just like that, you’re in business. We’ve had a lot of excitement from the library community, and a steady stream of people attending the weekly informational webinars and the configuration webinars. Many libraries have already obtained individual “quick start” sites, are reviewing and configuring their sites and getting ready to take it live to their users. Indeed, at the end of June, there were some 300 libraries that were using WorldCat Local, and we are now averaging about four registrations a day.
As you may have already guessed, WorldCat Local “quick start” is the first step toward Web-scale, cooperative library management services, including basic management. In the future, we’ll add functionality for Web-scale delivery and circulation, license management, cooperative intelligence, patron record management, and other services as determined by the community.
But because we are a cooperative, and because we’ve learned some lessons the hard way over the past few months, we’ve just named members of a Library Advisory Council to assist us in creating a Web-scale service strategy that will meet the needs of libraries across various sectors and geographies. The current members of the Library Advisory Council appear on the screen, but more will be added to this mix to give it more international diversity. The Council held its first meeting following this ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.
You can see that we have a number of new projects in resource sharing and delivery. We are working with Better World Books to provide home delivery through WorldCat Resource Sharing and ILLiad. The next version of ILLiad is in beta testing. WorldCat Navigator is a new service that provides seamless resource sharing within a library consortium and beyond. Our development partner on Navigator is Orbis-Cascade, and they are now using the service. OCLC is working with IDS Project staff at Milne Library, SUNY GENESEO to transform the IDS Project's Article Licensing Information Availability Service (ALIAS) from a local, unmediated article service to a network-level solution serving more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. Atlas Systems staff, creators of ILLiad and Odyssey resource sharing management systems, is also involved in this project which will use holdings data and license management tools to develop an integrated resource sharing solution for serials in any format. By combining data from WorldCat, and querying OCLC and third-party knowledge bases and electronic rights management data to determine lenders, OCLC delivery services will offer automated processing for fulfillment of non-returnable materials. This makes it possible to streamline resource sharing workflow for copy requests with a particular emphasis on requests for electronic resources. Ultimately, the project will increase the use of e-serials in libraries.
I am also pleased to report that we’ve created a new community within WebJunction for people interested in resource sharing issues. This new community portal will provide the ability to connect with other resource sharing librarians who have similar interests and experiences. You’ll be able to start or participate in discussions about resource sharing topics, share best practices, or discuss new trends.
From the press release: 14 April 2009—Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $5 million grant to the OCLC library cooperative to develop a public information campaign that will help public library leaders heighten awareness of the needs of local libraries and increase support for the services they provide during these challenging times. OCLC will pilot the campaign in select areas of Georgia and Iowa starting this summer as well as a limited number of other communities which will be selected later this spring. It’s important to stress here that the campaign that Gates and OCLC created is NOT a campaign to increase library usage. It is a campaign to increase awareness of library support needs. It is an elaboration of the idea that we can’t live on love alone, that while use soars, funding is being reduced.
With $5 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC is launching a pilot public awareness campaign in a small number of geographies. The campaign is designed to help increase awareness of local library needs and to increase support for the services they provide. The public awareness campaign, called ‘Geek the Library,’ reminds library users that everyone has interests and passions that local library resources support. The campaign uses ‘geek’ as a verb and points the public to the campaign Web site, geekthelibrary.org, where library users can learn more about becoming an advocate for public library funding support. OCLC has been working with Leo Burnett USA, a Chicago-based marketing communications agency, to design and implement the campaign, and initially partnered with libraries and library systems in the greater Savannah, Georgia area and in central Iowa. The campaign will run through December 2009.
The “Awareness to Funding” study indicates that by raising awareness of the breadth of library services, reconnecting probable supporters to the library's unique value and educating them about the need for support, residents will take action when the time comes to support local library initiatives. The community awareness campaign aims to shift probable supporters' perception of the library toward being personally relevant and uniquely vital to the local community. Working in collaboration with state and local library leaders, OCLC is piloting the awareness campaign in parts of Georgia and Iowa.
We have a few celebrities in the campaign…Lou Reed, Elvis Mitchell, Brian Dennehy…but the emphasis is on the real things real people can do with resources offered by real libraries.
I can’t stress enough that this campaign is about raising awareness, NOT usage. Also, the campaign is aimed at the general public, NOT librarians. The campaign asks people to take action in support of libraries. For example, if you click on the link that says “Show Your Support”…
But it’s not exclusively about getting the public riled up to support us. We have to show our passion, too! The “Awareness to Funding” report notes that one huge difference between successful libraries and less successful ones is the perception of their staff as being involved in the community and passionate about what they do. The time for being aloof, dispassionate, and removed is over. It’s time to wear our hearts on our sleeves and show why we care about this.