I’m in Dublin, Ohio, at the TechConnections conference to give three presentations tomorrow (blogs, RSS, and social bookmark managers), but I arrived just in time today to hear Gary Houk present on the topic of “Connecting Users to Library Services in an Amazoogle World: Trends in Information Discovery and Delivery.” Here are my blognotes:

“10 things Google has found to be true”
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

The Amazoogle user environment:

• For many, it’s the first and last resort of research
• Available at the point of need
• Comprehensive?
• How does it compare to libraries?

netLibrary is waiting for Apple to add DRM to the iPod so that their ebooks will work on it

“Digital Natives” = Millennials
— Online gaming (compete, collaborate, create)

OCLC’s response is Open WorldCat (OW)

• Functionality is changing almost weekly
• Search engines called OCLC (?)
• “Connect library users to library services on the open web through syndication… at the point of need….”
• No money is changing hands between OCLC and the search engines
• 9 million searches from these sites (although not all were click-throughs to library sites; that number is in the hundreds of thousands)

Have started to display the FRBR algorithm in Open WorldCat! Will deploy FRBR throughout OCLC services later this year

OCLC now has a Google toolbar?

Experimenting with Google Maps to display the libraries with holdings in Open WorldCat

On the “landing page” for a specific title from Yahoo or Google to OW, you’ll see a display in the upper right-hand corner of the databases to which the library subscribes

Issue of mobile devices – OCLC hasn’t done a lot in this area yet, but they plan to do more

Gary wants an icon on your device for the “global library channel”

Mentioned Google’s SMS functionality - should work for libraries, too!

OCLC’s focus for moving forward:

• Expand WorldCat to better represent library collections, particularly international
• Improve discovery by broadening partner base and enhancing the service
• Improve fulfillment through registries, authentication and new methods of service (e.g., the ejournal space)
• Make the data we have work harder

One of their key objectives for the next fiscal year is to help libraries manage their electronic collections as well as they’ve helped libraries manage their physical collections in the past.

Showed FictionFinder in the research section of the OCLC web site

• Showed a search for Ohio Amish mysteries that uses FRBR
• Stars aren’t ratings – they’re how many “manifestations” there are of the title; shows number of library holdings in parentheses

Top sets for fiction records are classics

• 1,296 for defoe, daniel
• 1,267 carroll, lewis
• 971 cervantes

When click on one, get navigation options by publisher, language, date, type

Wiki in WorldCat

• Want to capture user input in structured ways; will be a pilot test this summer
• User will be able to enter comments, recommendations, reviews, etc.
• Side note: this is exactly what I noted they could do at NEASIST in May!

Highlighted Google Scholar, which OW is part of

Highlighted Google Print, which OW is part of; metadata is available from OCLC; feel they are keeping libraries at the forefront of this

The implications of Google Libraries:

• Potentially covers about one third of print books in WorldCat
• 60% of total Google 5 (the 5 beta libraries) books held by only one of the G5
• Less than 5% held by all of the G5
• 20% of total G5 print books out of copyright
• There’s a paper coming out of their research

“Last Copy”

• 23 million WorldCat records have only a single holding attached

Data-mining study of Vanderbilt holdings in WC:

• Identified 23,000 items held uniquely by Vanderbilt
• 60% are print books
• 60% produced prior to 1950

OCLC/Ithaca collaboration:

• 32 million print books, representing 26 million distinct works
• Only about 120,000 works had both print and ebook manifestations
• Half of print books published after 1977, more than 80% still “in copyright”
• Rareness is common! Only a third of print books have more than 5 holdings, half have 2 or less
• This kind of intelligence helps establish digitization priorities and inform preservation planning

Need to factor in the habits of these “digital natives” when you’re planning your services and the delivery of them

If you’re spending a lot of money on your portal, is that the best use of your money? Most likely your users aren’t starting at your portal.

These companies are using metadata to connect people looking for stuff with people who need stuff – they’re innovators.

I asked when we’ll get RSS out of Open WorldCat – Gary wasn’t sure; “it’s a technology that OCLC is definitely looking at”