OCLC and Research Libraries UK (RLUK), a consortium of the largest research organisations in the UK and Ireland, today announced an expanded partnership that will help RLUK achieve key strategic objectives for shared collection management and resource discovery.
Building on existing OCLC cataloguing arrangements, the new agreement offers RLUK members the opportunity to load their bibliographic metadata into WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library holdings and services. This data will then be used to facilitate better understanding and visibility of these resources for both RLUK as a group, and for individual members of the consortium.
“Our membership is made up of some of the world’s leading research institutions with unique resources,” said Stella Butler, RLUK Chair. “Using a unique, global library resource like WorldCat is a perfect fit for RLUK. We will have a much more precise understanding of our collective assets, and where we can act to deliver better research impact and more effective management for their collections.”
Loading the bibliographic data of RLUK library collections into WorldCat will enable analysis and streamlined collection management across the group. “For many of our members this will allow them to free up space and time to concentrate on the many other priorities of research libraries, and also develop a more acute sense of individual collection strength and uniqueness amongst our group,” said John MacColl, RLUK Vice Chair.
In addition, OCLC’s partnerships with the world’s search engines will result in greater exposure, impact and access of these research resources online.
“OCLC is delighted to broaden our participation with RLUK,” said Eric van Lubeek, Vice-President, Managing Director, OCLC EMEA and APAC. “Collaborative collection management is central to the work of OCLC. RLUK libraries will find greater efficiencies in collection management and increased visibility through WorldCat.”
RLUK will also have access to a variety of services available through the OCLC WorldShare Platform, the open, cloud-based infrastructure that supports integration of applications from OCLC and other library service providers.
