I just returned from the first-ever WMS Global Community & User Group Meeting (#WMSGlobal), held at the OCLC headquarters in Dublin, OH. It was a great conference, but as all worthwhile conferences go, it was a whirlwind and felt too short (leaving at 4 am on Monday and returning at midnight on Tuesday makes it seem even more like a blur).
Unlike pre
vious WMS conferences, this one was global (as opposed to regional), so it was great to see how our international colleagues use WorldShare. Several librarians mentioned that because WorldShare is cloud-based, they do a lot of their transactions on iPads with bluetooth bar code scanners, which helps create a more personal interaction. Instead of the “please approach the bench” approach to requesting research assistance or to checking out a book, staff can help patrons find, access, and check out items at a more personal level (although this would be even better if we had RFID tags in our books). It’s great to see many libraries taking advantage of cloud-based solutions to help break down traditional barriers and make the process of discovery and access seamless. Considering the recent announcement that ILLiad-like workflows will be available in WorldShare (although it will be a separate product than WorldShare ILL), I can immediately see benefits here for ILL (pulling and updating concurrently–fewer touches per transaction). As I depend less on my computer and more on my other devices to get work done, the ability to do more in a browser without having to be tethered to a desk is great. As OCLC continues to mature their inventorying abilities for WMS, I’m hopeful we’ll be able to come up with an excellent mobile inventorying process for making sure we can account for our books and for making sure they’re findable.
Though the scope of the sessions I attended varied from technical to philosophical, one emergent theme I picked up on is the increased use of patron-driven acquisitions. More and more libraries are leveraging the scope of WorldCat to expose a wealth of resources to their patrons, allowing them to start their research with the best possible resources, not just locally-held ones. Bucknell’s library has been just about 100% PDA for about 4 years now, and it seems to be working very well. It was encouraging to hear other attendees say that they’ve heard of Buckenll’s bold PDA strategy and that they’re starting to adopt a model based on ours. Building collections based on what your patrons tell you that they need is a great first step, but it’s not enough. Building relationships with other libraries, depending on resource sharing to fill gaps, and cooperative print sharing seem like the best set of tools to ensure you’re serving your patrons best.
On a personal note, I had a great time at the conference, made some new friends, and found some trends to start following. I had a tour of the OCLC headquarters, and below you can see a few photos that I took. I was able to go in the OCLC data center (as big as 3 basketball courts), and I got to see the WorldCat cluster of servers. Unfortunately, photography is strictly forbidden in the data center, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
Librarians from 75 WMS institutions and five countries here at OCLC HQ for #WMSglobal. Day one was great! Onward day two! pic.twitter.com/S5OgCtLVvA
— OCLC (@OCLC) September 20, 2016