The author, a digital access architect in the information systems department of the Orange County Library System in Florida, was given the challenge of creating a library mobile app around the 2009 holiday season. At that time, Sheri Chambers, digital content manager in the information systems department, and Debbie Moss, assistant director of the…

The technology of the 21st century has had no shortage of challenges for libraries, but it has also brought opportunities. Operating systems, databases, and application environments that can use cheap off-the-shelf hardware to scale and handle hundreds of millions of transactions were not developed for libraries. However, libraries have taken…

This article presents a reading of the user interface in one public library system. Its aim is to find out the frames and competences required and used in the communication between the computer and the patron. The authors see the computer as a text that is to be read by the user who wants to search for information from the library. The transition…

As a concept, the next-generation catalog (NGC) is not new to librarians, who have been wishing for better OPAC interfaces for their integrated library systems (ILSs). The NGC has been the focus of discussion for more than 5 years now, from the 2006 report of the implementation of Endeca at North Carolina State University, to Marshall Breeding's…

In April 2007, the University of Washington Libraries debuted WorldCat Local (WCL), a localized version of the WorldCat database that interoperates with a library's integrated library system and fulfillment services to provide a single-search interface for a library's physical and electronic content. This brief will describe how WCL incorporates a…

With changing user expectations, many libraries are moving toward digital content. Accessible from anywhere at any time, digital content provides users with efficient, on-demand information experiences. Accordingly, librarians are presented with challenges and opportunities to build, manage, and implement outreach strategies that promote their…

It seems, at times, that a frantic race persists to ensure that a child, in the crucial learning stages of early elementary education, acquires the appropriate reading level before he or she "gets behind." Though there are obvious issues with branding a book "Grade Level One" or "Reading Level 2.2," it is nevertheless…

This Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) kit on retrospective conversion, which replaces a 1975 kit on reclassification, is based on interviews with and documents from Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members participating in retrospective conversion (recon). (Reclassification is almost always conducted as a sub-project of…

Relatively recent developments, ranging from microfilm catalogs to networked circulation systems, have the potential of removing much of the uncertainty from the routing of interlibrary loan requests. The opportunity of purchasing location and availability information changes the performance of a model interlibrary loan network. Data collected in…

When the Higher Education Library Information Network of Rhode Island transferred members' bibliographic data into a shared online public access catalog (OPAC), 10% of the University of Rhode Island's monograph records were missing. This article describes the consortium's attempts to retrieve records from the database and the effectiveness of…

Identifies the several functions which contribute to the total bibliographic record structure of the country, dividing the bibliographic record system by market type--government, nonprofit, and for-profit--and by function--shared cataloging, interlibrary loans, online catalogs, circulation control, serials control, and acquisitions. (Author/JL)

Libraries are changing. Funding limits and customer demands are transforming staffing levels, service models, access to resources, and services to the public. Administrators and taxpayers are seeking more efficient ways of delivering services to achieve greater returns on financial investments. In this article, the author discusses the benefits of…

Developed at the beginning of the decade to serve as a union catalog for identifying the holdings in all University of California (UC) libraries, the MELVYL online catalog as of October 1989 contained 10 million holdings for over 5 million monographic titles of print and nonprint materials, and more than 1.2 million periodicals holdings which…

Libraries are moving into an era that incorporates improvements of a library's existing databases, embraces the research results of the information-seeking process, and makes fundamental improvements by adding new databases such as WordFocus. These new systems should convert the frustrated user of today's online public access catalog (OPAC) into…

This overview of OhioLINK, a library automation project that links 17 academic libraries and the state library in Ohio, describes the planning, governance, mandates, and structure of the network. Implementation of OhioLINK at Miami University is discussed, including selection of a library automation system, representation on OhioLINK committees,…