News from OCLC

Citation

(2002), "News from OCLC", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 36 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2002.28036bab.008

News from OCLC

News from OCLC

Purchase of netLibrary by OCLC

The sale of netLibrary assets to OCLC was completed at the end of January 2002 in Boulder, Colorado. The sale includes both the eBook Division, which will become a division of OCLC, and the MetaText eTextbook Division, which will become a for-profit subsidiary. Both operations will remain in Boulder.

"netLibrary is an excellent strategic fit for OCLC," said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer. "netLibrary's eBooks will provide synergies in OCLC's core service areas of cataloguing, resource sharing, reference, and digital and preservation services, and the MetaText Division will allow OCLC to develop services that will provide new links and synergies involving textbooks, classrooms and library collections."

netLibrary is the leading provider of eBooks and Internet-based content management services for the institutional library market. netLibrary develops, hosts, maintains and preserves eBook collections for academic, corporate, public, and school libraries. Thousands of libraries throughout the United States and internationally are currently providing netLibrary eBooks to their users. The MetaText Division of netLibrary creates, hosts and manages Web-based digital textbooks for leading textbook publishers. MetaText digital textbooks provide instructors and students with a full range of interactive teaching, collaborating and learning tools.

OCLC to host Indic language cataloguing service in Europe

In early 2002 the Laser (London and South Eastern Library Region) Foundation moved the Co-operative of Indic Language Library Authorities (CILLA) to the OCLC PICA office located in Birmingham. CILLA is a major service created and managed by Laser, serving libraries throughout the UK in the areas of book acquisition and cataloguing. CILLA deals with materials in the Indic languages: Bengali; Gujarati; Hindi; Punjabi; Tamil; and Urdu.

"We are delighted to be able to continue the CILLA service that has served UK subscribers so well for over 20 years," said Janet Lees, director, OCLC PICA. "CILLA's bibliographic records will in the future be added to OCLC WorldCat. The new Oracle platform for WorldCat will enable CILLA records to be displayed in the vernacular script in the future, which should be of great benefit to the ethnic populations using the materials provided through this service."

"CILLA is a unique and highly valued service, which has provided a vital key element in the provision of minority language books to public libraries in the United Kingdom for over 20 years," said Frances Hendrix, Company Secretary, Laser Foundation. "I am delighted that this, the last of the Laser services to be transferred to a new home, has found such an excellent partner, securing the service well into the future," said Professor Fred Bullock, chair of the Laser Foundation. "I am also very grateful that OCLC chose to make a generous donation to the foundation, which came as a welcome surprise following the completion of the handover agreement."

The Laser Foundation was created as a Grant Making Trust in October 2001. The trust was a transfer of the status of Laser to that of the grant-making charitable trust. Laser had been a library co-operative since the 1930s, offering a range of services related to library co-operation and interlending.

OCLC introduces new digital co-operative and preservation services

OCLC introduced a new Digital and Preservation Co-op, the Digital Archive and the Digital and Preservation Resources Centers during the American Library Association meeting in January 2002. The Digital Co-op will provide libraries, publishers, museums, historical societies, cultural heritage institutions and government agencies access to a global network of resources for digital collection management, co-ordinated access to grants and collaborative implementation.

The Digital Archive will be part of the growing network of digital repositories accessible via the Web. The Digital and Preservation Resources Centers will assist collection managers by providing options for preserving and enhancing access to collections.

OCLC has established a new division – Digital and Preservation Resources – to help institutions control costs for digitisation and metadata creation, expand access to digital collections and ensure long-term access to those resources.

"OCLC's goal is to help organisations leverage the investment they make in digitisation by providing enhanced access to their collections and ensuring their long-term retention," said Meg Bellinger, Vice President, OCLC Digital and Preservation Resources. "Publishers, aggregators and libraries can rely on OCLC to retain born-digital and reborn digital content."

"OCLC will focus on digital collection development and management of collaborative efforts to support libraries working together to increase access to their unique collections as well as pass them on to future generations," Ms Bellinger said. "In order for libraries to maintain the traditional role as the provider of access to information, they need to develop a strategy for delivering electronic information to users. Digital and Preservation Resources will help libraries share expertise and identify the best practices and common approaches."

For further information please contact Kathy Fryer, OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017 3395, USA. E-mail: kathy_fryer:oclc_org; URL: www.oclc.org