Press Releases & News

OCLC and Google to exchange data, link digitised books to WorldCat

DUBLIN, Ohio, May 19, 2008—OCLC and Google Inc. have signed an agreement to exchange data that will facilitate the discovery of library collections through Google search services.

Under terms of the agreement, OCLC member libraries participating in the Google Book Search program, which makes the full text of more than one million books searchable, may share their WorldCat-derived MARC records with Google to better facilitate discovery of library collections through Google.

Google will link from Google Book Search to WorldCat.org, which will drive traffic to library OPACs and other library services. Google will share data and links to digitised books with OCLC, which will make it possible for OCLC to represent the digitised collections of OCLC member libraries in WorldCat.

“This agreement will directly support the interests of OCLC's participating libraries by broadening access to library collections and services by making them more widely available on the Web,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. “We are pleased to partner with Google in pursuit of our mission to connect people to knowledge through international library cooperation.”

WorldCat metadata will be made available to Google directly from OCLC or through member libraries participating in the Google Book Search program.

Google recently released an API that provides links to books in Google Book Search using ISBNs, LCCNs, and OCLC numbers. This API allows WorldCat.org users to link to some books that Google has scanned through a “Get It” link. The link works both ways. If a user finds a book in Google Book Search, a link can often be tracked back to local libraries through WorldCat.org.

The new agreement enables OCLC to create MARC records describing the Google digitised books from OCLC member libraries and to link to them. These linking arrangements should help drive more traffic to libraries, both online and in person.

“This agreement will help libraries, Google and OCLC provide content that searchers want, at the point of need—through the Web,” said Chip Nilges, Vice President, OCLC Business Development. “It will help increase the visibility of libraries through Web searches, and will facilitate access to libraries' collections from Google or WorldCat.org.”

“OCLC's efforts to bring together information on digitised content will be significant for users, making it possible to find in one place what has been digitised, where that content is, and the relationship of one version to others,” said John Wilkin, Associate University Librarian for Library Information Technology and Technical and Access Services, University of Michigan. “We're excited by this major step forward.”

Microsoft Book Search winding down

Friday, May 23, 2008 – Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes.

This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users.

Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner. For example, this past Wednesday we announced our strategy to focus on verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel, and offer users cash back on their purchases from our advertisers. With Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, we digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles. Based on our experience, we foresee that the best way for a search engine to make book content available will be by crawling content repositories created by book publishers and libraries. With our investments, the technology to create these repositories is now available at lower costs for those with the commercial interest or public mandate to digitize book content. We will continue to track the evolution of the industry and evaluate future opportunities.

As we wind down Live Search Books, we are reaching out to participating publishers and libraries. We are encouraging libraries to build on the platform we developed with Kirtas, the Internet Archive, CCS, and others to create digital archives available to library users and search engines.

In partnership with Ingram Digital Group, we are also reaching out to participating publishers with information about new marketing and sales opportunities designed to help them derive ongoing benefits from their participation in the Live Search Books Publisher Program.

We have learned a tremendous amount from our experience and believe this decision, while a hard one, can serve as a catalyst for more sustainable strategies. To that end, we intend to provide publishers with digital copies of their scanned books. We are also removing our contractual restrictions placed on the digitized library content and making the scanning equipment available to our digitization partners and libraries to continue digitization programs. We hope that our investments will help increase the discoverability of all the valuable content that resides in the world of books and scholarly publications.

Library use of E-books

Primary Research Group has published Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition, (ISBN 1-57440-101-7) and would like to share some of the results.

Data in the report are based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e-book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter-library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e-books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers.

Some of the findings of the 110-page report are:

• Libraries in the sample expected to renew over 77% of their current contracts.
• Well over 81% of the sample cataloged their e-book collection and listed it in their online library catalog.
• E-book spending by libraries is growing rapidly in 2008 but by significantly less than in 2007
• For the most part, librarians in the sample felt that their patrons were less skilled in using e-book collections than they were in using databases of magazine, newspaper and journal articles.
• The libraries in the sample had MARC records for a mean of approximately 74% of the e-books in their collections.
• Many libraries reported significant use of electronic directories. 12.5% reported extensive use and 30% said that use was significant. The larger libraries reported the heaviest use.
• Use of e-books in the hard sciences was particularly high. More than 30% of participants said that use of e-books in the hard sciences (defined as chemistry, physics and biology) was quite extensive and another 26% noted significant use.
• Libraries in the sample maintained a print version for a mean of 24% of the e-books in their e-book collections.
• Nearly 21% of the libraries in our sample have digitized out-of-copyright books in their collections in order to make their contents more available to their patrons.
• E-books account for only about 3.9% of the books on course reserve, with a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 30%.
• Nearly 70% of the sample=E2=80=99s total spending on e-books was with aggregators, while just over 24.6% of the total spending was spent with individual publishers.

Data are broken out by library budget size, for US and non-US libraries and for academic and non-academic libraries. The report presents more than 300 tables of data on e-book use by libraries, as well as analysis and commentary.

For further information view our website at http://www.PrimaryResearch.com .

Sparc and Science Commons release guide to creating institutional open access policies

Washington, DC and Cambridge, MA, April 28, 2008 – SPARC and Science Commons have released "Open Doors and Open Minds: What faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution." The new white paper assists institutions in adopting policies that ensure the widest practical exposure for scholarly works produced, such as that adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February. Co-authored by SPARC and Science Commons, "Open Doors and Open Minds" is a how-to guide for faculty, administrators, and advocates to formulate an institutional license grant that delivers open access to campus research outputs. Some institutions are considering such policies as they work to comply with new requirements for public access from national agencies including the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The white paper details the motivations behind the Harvard policy, offers a concise explanation of U.S. Copyright Law and how it relates to the scholarly publishing process, and makes specific suggestions for faculty and advocates to pursue a campus-wide policy. The guide offers a detailed plan of action, a series of institutional license options, and a 10-point list of actions for realizing a policy and adopting the right University License to meet the institution's particular needs.

Three different licenses, which are granted to the institution by the author, are offered for consideration:

• Case 1. Broad license grant – a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise all of the author's exclusive rights under copyright, including the right to grant sublicenses.
• Case 2. Intermediate license grant – involves license restrictions that modify the scope of the license grant in Case 1.
• Case 3. Narrow license grant – grants to the university only the right to deposit the article in the institutional repository, and to make it available through the repository Website.

The paper also recommends mandatory deposit of articles in institutional repositories. Mandatory deposit may be adopted regardless of the licensing policy chosen.

"The Harvard policy is a recognition that the Internet creates opportunities to radically accelerate distribution and impact for scholarly works," said John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science at Creative Commons. "As more universities move to increase the reach of their faculty's work, it's important that faculty members have a clear understanding of the key issues involved and the steps along the path that Harvard has trail-blazed. This paper is a foundational document for universities and faculty to use as they move into the new world of Open Access scholarly works."

"Everyone – faculty, librarians, administrators, and other advocates – has the power to initiate change at their institution," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC.

"By championing an open access policy, helping to inform your colleagues about the benefits of a policy change, and identifying the best license and most effective path to adoption, it can be done." "Open Doors and Open Minds" and the 10-step action list is openly available on the SPARC Website at http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/guides/opendoors_v1.shtml .

Jewell inaugural recipient of Coutts Award for Innovation in Electronic Resources Management

Chicago, April 1, 2008 ­– The Collection Management and Development Section (CMDS) of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is pleased to announce Tim Jewell, director, information resources, collections, and scholarly communication at the University of Washington, Seattle, Wash., as the winner of the first annual Coutts Award for Innovation in Electronic Resources Management.

The award recognizes significant and innovative contributions to electronic collections management and development practice. The recipient receives a $2,000 award generously donated by Coutts Information Services and a citation. The award will be presented on Sunday, June 29, at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony during the 2008 American Library Association (ALA) meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

Tim Jewell has a distinguished record of innovation in the field of electronic resources management and is a key figure in the development of initiatives and standards. His pioneering report, Selection and Presentation of Commercially Available Electronic Resources: Issues and Practices, shed light on the ways that libraries were integrating electronic resources into print collections.

Jewell was co-creator of the Web Hub for Developing Administrative Metadata for Electronic Resources Management, a Website that served as a forum for electronic resources librarians to share information. He conceived and co-directed the Digital Library Federation Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI), identifying the unique management needs of electronic resources that were not being addressed by traditional library management systems and encouraging the development of new systems for managing these resources. This work culminated in Electronic Resource Management: The Report of the DLF Initiative, an innovative report, which outlined functional requirements and a comprehensive model for managing electronic resources that is now used by most major automation vendors.

Jewell also played a pivotal role in the development of the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI), which was subsequently approved as a NISO standard, and ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL). He continues to play a critical role developing new initiatives, as evidenced in the recent publication of the DLF/ERMI White Paper on Interoperability between Acquisitions Modules of Integrated Library Systems and Electronic Resource Management Systems, inspiring vendors to standardize the automatic transfer of acquisitions information into an electronic resources management system from an integrated library system.

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats. ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.