OCLC newsletter

              O C L C

N E W S L E T T E R

S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 1 I S S N : 0 1 6 3 - 8 9 8 X N O . 2 5 3

Delivering on the technology promise

C O N T E N T S September/ October 2001 No. 253

Editor in chief:

Nita Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . nita_ dean@ oclc. org

Editor:

Bob Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bob_ murphy@ oclc. org

Assistant Editors:

George Promenschenkel . . . . . . . promensg@ oclc. org

Christopher Barton . . . . . . . . . . . . . bartonc@ oclc. org

Editorial Assistant:

Jennifer Hamilton . . . . . . . jennifer_ hamilton@ oclc. org

Cover Design: Linda Shepard

Art Production: Tammy Miller

Desktop Publishing: Lithokraft II

All photos taken by Tammy Miller or Rich Skopin

unless otherwise noted.

OCLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer, treating its

employees and applicants equitably without regard to

race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, handicap,

sexual orientation, or marital status.

OCLC Newsletter ( ISSN: 0163- 898X) is published by

OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated,

6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio 43017- 3395.

Contents of this newsletter may be reproduced in whole

or in part provided that credit is given.

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OCLC Newsletter is also available via OCLC’s home

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All products and services named are trademarks or ser-vice

marks of their respective companies.

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International, and WorldCat are registered trademarks of

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Contact Information:

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OCLC, Dublin, Ohio,

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OCLC User and Network Support . . . 1- 800- 848- 5800

OCLC, a nonprofit membership organi-zation,

is engaged in computer library

service and research.

Correspondents:

George Barnum

Neil Beagrie

Meg Bellinger

Robert C. Bolander

Shirley Hyatt

Brian F. Lavoie

George Needham

Taylor Surface

Lisa Wright

Membership News

Committee reviewing membership issues

Waseda University Library adds 277,481 records to WorldCat

IFLA/ OCLC Early Career Development Fellows named for 2002

IFLA pre- conference hosted by OCLC Forest Press

OCLC a significant presence at IFLA in Boston

Western Illinois University strikes again with 109 millionth OCLC ILL

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center enters 110 millionth ILL

British Library Document Supply Centre uses OCLC IFM service

Tsinghua University and OCLC to establish Chinese Information Network

Library directors from China visit OCLC campus

Linda Evers joins OCLC Institute

OCLC establishes corporate Inclusion Initiative

Library visits help Documentation staff focus on user needs

Dewey Editorial Policy Committee meets at the Library of Congress

OCLC Statistics

OCLC hosts LIBER pre- conference

Librarians meet at OCLC to discuss community college library needs

Winners of PAIS International subscription drawings announced

OCLC Institute Announces Upcoming 2001 Schedule

Research

Office of Research, Research Advisory Committee discuss change

and choice

Tukaram Kumbar named OCLC Visiting Scholar

Digital and Preservation Resources

OCLC Digital and Preservation Resources:

Delivering on the technology promise

Helping libraries manage the digital collection life cycle

Digital preservation at ALA Annual 2001

Videotape of Digital Preservation Symposium available via interlibrary loan

OCLC collaborates to develop digital archive of web documents

RLG and OCLC release paper for comment

GPO and the Web Document Digital Archive pilot

Metadata for digital preservation

Digital Preservation Coalition to develop international context

to preserving digital resources

OCLC Preservation Resources to store microfilm for CIC

Digital projects continue to expand access to collections

Product News

Per- article purchase available in OCLC Electronic Collections Online

H. W. Wilson’s Essay and General Literature Index

now available on FirstSearch

New publishers, journals now available through

OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online

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GOING FORWARD

FROM SEPTEMBER 11

F R O M J A Y J O R D A N

B ad news travels fast in our global village.

On September 11, it came to me via CNN in

my hotel room in Göttingen, Germany,

where I was attending a conference on the topic,

“ On the Way to the Virtual World Library.” I was

putting the final touches on a speech I was to give

that evening at the University of Göttingen

Library to commemorate the 10th anniversary of

the partnership between Pica and the GBV

German library network.

After conferring with my hosts— Professor Dr.

Horst Kern, president of the University of

Göttingen, Professor Dr. Elmar Mittler of the

Göttingen University Library, Look Costers of the

Pica Foundation and Reiner Dietrich of the GBV

network ( Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund)— I

ended up giving my speech to about 200 German

librarians who were unanimous in extending their

sympathy to the United States in the wake of the

terrorist attacks. We at OCLC have since received

e- mails and telegrams from librarians around the

world who have expressed their shock and

sympathy and support.

In New York City, approximately 40 libraries lost

their TCP/ IP telecommunications links to the OCLC

system after the attack. Nylink and OCLC staff

have subsequently worked with these libraries to

switch to Internet access until their dedicated links

are restored. OCLC is providing this access at no

charge to the affected libraries. Nylink staff have

also worked with affected libraries on maintaining

OCLC system save files and ILL request files.

Indeed, one Group Access Capability library has

asked Nylink staff to check their ILL message file

because they were concerned about missing

incoming requests from other libraries.

Some OCLC employees were close to the

terrorist attack. Staff of the OCLC Public Affairs

Information Service found themselves stranded

and without phone service, though PAIS Executive

Director Debra Brown- Spruill was able to

communicate with OCLC via e- mail. Within

several days, staff at PAIS in New York and OCLC

NetFirst in Evansville, Indiana, added hot topic lists

about terrorism and counseling children to our

web site. Two OCLC employees attending

a technical seminar were several blocks from the

World Trade Center and witnessed its collapse.

In Washington, D. C., staffs at CAPCON,

FEDLINK and OCLC Forest Press reported no

damage to libraries or disruption of service.

At OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, September 11 was

the second day of a week- long meeting of the

support staffs of U. S. regional networks and

service centers. This group conducted its

business with heavy hearts and at week’s end,

found themselves having to drive home in

rental cars instead of flying. Because of flight

shutdowns, I was stranded in Europe for five days.

Compared to the attacks themselves, these were

minor inconveniences, to be sure, but they were

also indicators of how September 11 had changed

not just our library community, but the world.

I would like to thank the staff at Nylink and

OCLC who have been instrumental in getting New

York libraries reconnected to our global network.

We at OCLC join the people of the world in

offering condolences to those affected by the

terrorist attacks of September 11. Like you in your

libraries and institutions, we must keep doing our

jobs while trying to comprehend and cope. Our

library network links over 40,000 institutions in

76 countries, and, together, we serve millions of

people. Our global cooperative has been built on

trust and collaboration and the shared belief in the

importance of organizing and preserving the

world’s information and passing it on to future

generations. Surely, those beliefs will help to

sustain us as we both remember and move forward.

Jay Jordan

President and Chief Executive Officer

OCLC

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

4 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

by George Needham

The Ad Hoc Membership

Committee has begun work

on drafting new definitions

of membership and contri-bution,

and recommending

a new formula for allocating

delegates to the OCLC

Members Council. The

committee was established

by the OCLC Board of Trustees to implement rec-ommendations

made by the Strategic Directions

and OCLC Governance Advisory Council in its

December 2000 report.

The Advisory Council recommended that

OCLC maintain its nonprofit membership struc-ture,

and that it continue to base membership on

the contribution of intellectual effort to the coop-erative

and on resource sharing.

The committee is reviewing the definition

( or definitions) of membership within OCLC’s

developing global environment and the nature

of contribution to the OCLC cooperative as new

libraries join and a new platform for WorldCat is

implemented. The committee will also look at

ways to keep these definitions current as OCLC

products and services develop in the future.

The committee, chaired by Mary- Alice Lynch,

Nylink executive director, held its first meeting in

Chicago on June 4, followed this up with a confer-ence

call in July, and will meet again following the

OCLC Board of Trustees meeting in September.

The timeline calls for a draft report for the

December board meeting for comment by all

OCLC stakeholders. The committee will deliver

its final report to the board in April 2002 for

action by the board and Members Council. Any

changes to the OCLC Code of Regulations would

require approval by both bodies.

The first step in the process has been to

review the current delegate algorithm to see how

certain changes would have affected its results.

The September meeting of the committe focused

on opportunities for participation and contribu-tion

offered by OCLC’s new products, services

and platform.

With this information, the committee will draft

recommendations for institutionalizing the new

definitions and the ongoing review process. From

November through March, these recommenda-tions

will be discussed by the OCLC Board, the

Members Council, the boards of the regional net-works,

and others interested in the future of the

cooperative.

In addition to Mary- Alice Lynch, the Ad Hoc

Membership Committee includes Larry Alford,

OCLC Members Council past president and

deputy university librarian, University of North

Carolina– Chapel Hill; Maurice Glicksman, OCLC

Board of Trustees member and professor of engi-neering

and provost emeritus, Brown University;

Victoria Hanawalt, OCLC Board of Trustees mem-ber

and college librarian, Eric V. Hauser Library,

Reed College; Ian Mowat, OCLC Users Council

member and librarian, Edinburgh University

Library; and Kristin Senecal, OCLC Members

Council member and acting director, Waidner-

Spahr Library, Dickinson College. William Crowe,

OCLC Board of Trustees chair and Spencer

Librarian, Kenneth Spencer Research Library,

University of Kansas; and Jerry Stephens, OCLC

Members Council president and librarian and

director, Mervyn H. Sterne Library, University of

Alabama– Birmingham, serve on the committee

ex- officio. Richard Van Orden, program director,

OCLC Members Council, and I are the OCLC staff

liaisons.

For more information, contact me at 1- 800- 848-

5878, extension 5173, or at < needhamg@ oclc.

org>.— George Needham is vice president,

OCLC Members Services.

• • •

Committee reviewing membership issues

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 5

Waseda University Library added 277,481 new

records to WorldCat ( the OCLC Online Union

Catalog) in July, the second in a two- phase OCLC

Batchload project to enrich the world’s largest

bibliographic database with records from one of

the most prestigious research universities in

Japan.

The Phase II Waseda MARC project includes

Japanese language bibliographic records that

were converted from Waseda MARC to USMARC

through the Waseda University Scholarly

Information Network ( WINE) system.

Following the large- scale batchloads, Waseda

University plans to send records monthly to

OCLC to be loaded in WorldCat.

“ Cooperation with OCLC to foster global

resource sharing has been Waseda University’s tra-dition

and commitment,” said Michitaro Urakawa,

director, Waseda University Library. “ It has been a

pleasant and rewarding experience working with

OCLC. We take great pride in providing valuable

information on Japanese books to libraries world-wide

through OCLC, and this contribution will

continue.”

“ Waseda’s commitment to resource sharing is

well represented by this latest addition of Waseda

records to WorldCat,” said Andrew H. Wang, exec-utive

director, OCLC Asia Pacific. “ Libraries

throughout the world will benefit from Waseda’s

dedication to extending the reach of scholarship

and interlibrary loan on a global scale.”

In December 1995, OCLC loaded 282,980

Waseda MARC records in WorldCat, completing

Phase I of the project.

Waseda MARC records went through several

technical pre- processing treatments by Waseda

University Library, Kinokuniya Company ( OCLC’s

distributor in Japan) and OCLC before the

batchload.

The new, unique records are available immedi-ately

to OCLC users for online shared cataloging,

interlibrary loan and reference services, including

collection analysis and development. In addition

to the new records, the Waseda University Library

holdings symbol, LWU, was attached to 141,660

other records already present in WorldCat.

Prior to the latest batchload of records from

Waseda University, WorldCat contained about

900,000 Japanese language records.

Waseda University participates in the AAU/ ARL/ NCC

Japan Journal Access Project through WorldCat using

the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service. Waseda University

functions as a resource sharing service center in Japan, making its

scholarly Japanese collection available worldwide in

support of Japanese studies. The AAU/ ARL/ NCC

Japan Journal Access Project is sponsored by the

American Association of Universities ( AAU), the

Association of Research Libraries ( ARL), and the

North American Coordinating Council on Japanese

Library Resources ( NCC). Waseda University has

cataloged new library acquisitions on WorldCat since 1985.

• • •

Waseda University Library adds 277,481 records

to WorldCat

Waseda University Library

photo courtesy of Waseda University

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

6 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

The International Federation of Library

Associations and Institutions ( IFLA) and OCLC

have awarded five IFLA/ OCLC Early Career

Development Fellowships for 2002. OCLC and

IFLA established the fellowships to support

library and information science professionals who

are in the early stages of their career development

and from countries with developing economies.

The fellows are:

• Dayang Zarina Abang Ismail, librarian/ manager,

Centre for Academic Information Services,

University Malaysia, Sarawak, Kota Samarahan,

Malaysia

• Ferry Irawan, head, Library and Information

Technology, Castle Group, Jakarta, Indonesia

• Sibongile Madolo, librarian, Reference Unit,

Library of Parliament, Cape Town, South Africa

• Purity Mwagha, library section head and

lecturer, Kenya Technical Training College,

Nairobi, Kenya

• J. K. Vijayakumar, scientific technical officer,

Library Division, INFLIBNET, Ahmedabad, India

The five fellowship recipients will participate

in a specially designed four- week program in the

United States April 29– May 24, 2002. Based at the

OCLC Institute in Dublin, Ohio, the fellows will

also spend time at the

Mortenson Center for

International Library

Programs at the

University of Illinois,

Urbana- Champaign;

the American Library

Association; and the

Library of Congress.

The intensive program

includes OCLC

Institute programs,

special meetings with

OCLC staff and man-agement,

observing an

OCLC Members

Council meeting, and

visits to various

libraries and OCLC

regional service

providers.

Applicants for the

fellowships submit an

application portfolio cover sheet, a resume, three

letters of reference and an essay.

In his essay Mr. Irawan wrote,“ With developing

technology, library and information professionals

will play an increasingly important role in the eco-nomic,

educational and social development fields.

I believe overseas training is absolutely necessary

for me [ to] obtain sufficient skills to play a more

central role in fostering development of the infor-mation

science profession in Indonesia.”

Information on the fellowship program is avail-able

from the OCLC Institute on the web < http://

www. oclc. org/ institute/>, via telephone at + 1-

614- 764- 6357, or by writing to the OCLC Institute

at 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, Ohio, USA, 43017.

The International Federation of Library

Associations and Institutions ( founded in 1927)

is a worldwide, independent organization

created to provide librarians around the world

with a forum for exchanging ideas and promoting

international cooperation. IFLA is also doing

research and development in all fields of library

activities. IFLA’s objectives are: to represent

librarianship in matters of international interest;

to promote the continuing education of library

personnel; and to develop, maintain and promote

guidelines for library services. With over 1,600

members in more than 150 countries, IFLA is a

truly global organization. The federation is

deeply rooted in the library community world-wide

< http:// www. ifla. org/>.

• • •

IFLA/ OCLC Early Career Development Fellows

named for 2002

Christine Deschamps, IFLA president and member of the OCLC

Board of Trustees, speaks to the press during the IFLA conference

in Boston to announce the 2002 Fellows. Jay Jordan, OCLC

president and CEO, seated in the middle, and Erik Jul, executive

director, OCLC Institute, participated in the news conference.

Two of the five 2002 IFLA/ OCLC Early Career Development

Fellows attended the news conference announcing the fellowship

winners. They are, left to right: Dayang Zarina Abang Ismail,

librarian/ manager, Centre for Academic Information Services,

University Malaysia, Sarawak; and Ferry Irawan, head, Library

and Information Technology, Castle Group, Jakarta, Indonesia.

photos by Kerri Allen

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 7

Pre- conference participants enjoyed a reception in the OCLC Kilgour Building atrium.

The International Federation of Library

Associations and Institutions ( IFLA) sponsored

an IFLA pre- conference,“ Subject Retrieval in a

Networked Environment,” hosted by OCLC Forest

Press at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio,

Aug. 14– 16. More than 80 librarians and other

information industry professionals from 14

countries participated in the pre- conference.

Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO, and

Ia McIlwaine, chair of the IFLA Section on

Classification and Indexing, welcomed partici-pants

to the pre- conference. Clifford A. Lynch,

director, the Coalition for Networked

Information, provided the keynote address.

Over the following two- and- a- half days, 23

of the participants presented research to their

colleagues on new developments in subject

retrieval that will impact libraries worldwide,

and provided demonstrations of selected research

projects. Erik Jul, executive director, OCLC

Institute, closed the pre- conference by summa-rizing

primary themes that emerged from the

research presentations.

The pre- conference activities also included

an after- dinner presentation by Stuart Weibel,

consulting research scientist, OCLC Office of

Research; tours of the OCLC Kilgour building; and

a reception for participants hosted by OCLC

Forest Press in celebration of the 125th anniver-sary

of the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

• • •

IFLA pre- conference hosted by OCLC Forest Press

Clifford Lynch, director, Coalition for Networked Information, presented the keynote address.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

8 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

More than 325 IFLA conference participants enjoyed the OCLC- sponsored boat cruise.

OCLC enjoyed a high profile at the International

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

( IFLA) conference and exhibition in Boston,

Massachusetts, Aug. 16– 25.

More than 5,000 people from 150 countries

assembled for the 67th annual IFLA conference

with the theme,“ Libraries & Librarians: Making a

Difference in the Knowledge Age.” The record

turnout marked the federation’s first return to the

United States since its 1985 meeting in Chicago.

OCLC hosted a variety of events and meetings

throughout the conference, and staff from around

the world provided demonstrations of OCLC ser-vices

from the OCLC booth.

Events were capped off with an OCLC-sponsored

cruise. More than 325 conference

participants enjoyed a reception and a unique

view of Boston aboard a cruise ship from Boston

Harbor.

• • •

OCLC a significant presence at IFLA in Boston

OCLC staff members from around the world gathered at the OCLC

booth during the IFLA conference.

Nicholas Cop, OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean, makes a presentation during the

IFLA Conference.

photos by Kerri Allen

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 9

Western Illinois University Library, Macomb,

Illinois, created the 109 millionth OCLC

Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) request on June 19.

The request was for the book Really Bad

Girls of the Bible: More Lessons from Less

Than Perfect Women, and was filled by the

Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, New York.

Linda Burkey, borrowing coordinator,

WIU, also entered the 93 millionth OCLC

ILL request on Aug. 23, 1999. Ms. Burkey

has been working at the library for 15 years,

including three as a student.

Julie Hannen, interlibrary loan coordina-tor,

couldn’t believe that this was the sec-ond

time the unit had captured a millionth

request. “ We have been trying ever since

1993 and finally got another one,” Ms.

Burkey said.

Ms. Burkey and Bruce Ackers, lending

coordinator, were working together when

the 109 millionth record was reached. Mr.

Ackers hit record number 109,000,001.

“ This time, we were worried we weren���t

going to have enough requests,” Ms. Burkey said.

“ It’s still nice to get a millionth record and we still

wanted another one because the desire does not

go away.”

WIU Library is expecting to receive a software

upgrade this fall. The main library building will

have a new identity, being named Oct. 19 after

one of the university’s past presidents, Leslie F.

Malpass, who successfully solicited funds for the

library through 1975.

The 108 millionth request was created by

Evergreen State College Library, Olympia,

Washington, on April 30.

• • •

Western Illinois University strikes again

with 109 millionth OCLC ILL

Western Illinois University made the 109 millionth OCLC ILL request. Staff

from the library includes, left to right: Julie Hannen, interlibrary loan

coordinator; Bruce Ackers, lending coordinator; and Linda Burkey,

borrowing coordinator.

photo courtesy of Western Illinois University

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

10 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical

Center at Dallas Library entered the 110 millionth

request on the OCLC Interlibrary Loan ( ILL) ser-vice

on Aug. 6.

The request, for an article in Journal of

Nuclear Medicine, was entered for a Nobel

Prize- winning faculty member. The British

Library Urgent Action Service filled the request

the same day.

Tracy Beeson, senior office assistant/ borrowing

specialist, entered the request, initially thinking it

a fluke when she saw the number “ 1” on the ILL

record. The OCLC ILL service uses seven digits to

track ILL record numbers, therefore every 10 mil-lionth

record displays as record ���� 1.”

“ She asked if it was a mistake,” said Kathryn

Connell, manager, Document Services. “ Then

Heather Perkins who used to work for Amigos

Library Services ( the OCLC- affiliated network for

the library) told her it must be a millionth

request. Before we got too excited though we

waited to hear from OCLC.”

Ms. Perkins is now the assistant manager of the

Document Services unit at UT Southwestern

Library.

Nine staff members divided into two teams—

Document Delivery and Materials Support— work

in the Document Services unit of the library. The

library provides three levels of ILL service:

“ Rush” ( next day by 5 p. m.),“ Priority” ( within

eight days), and “ Regular” ( within four weeks).

“ We’ve seen a considerable increase in Rush

orders,” said Ms. Connell. “ And overall, even with

electronic journals ( we now offer over 4,000 of

them), our borrowing has increased more than

4 percent over the last year. We��re still a bargain.”

The library at the University of Texas

Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas provides

service to students, faculty and physicians and

other employees of three degree- granting institu-tions—

Southwestern Medical School, South-western

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

and Southwestern Allied Health Sciences

School— as well as for four hospitals— Zale Lipshy

University Hospital, Parkland Memorial Hospital,

Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and St. Paul

Medical Center. These three schools train approx-imately

3,400 medical, graduate and allied health

students, residents and postdoctoral fellows each

year. The UT Southwestern faculty includes four

Nobel Prize winners and 11 members of the

National Academy of Sciences < http:// www3.

utsouthwestern. edu/>.

The British Library Urgent Action Service

( OCLC symbol B# R) is provided by the British

Library Document Supply Centre in Wetherby,

West Yorkshire, United Kingdom < http:// minos.

bl. uk/ services/ bsds/ dsc/ overview. html>.

• • •

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

enters 110 millionth ILL request

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas entered the 110 millionth OCLC

ILL request. Library staff members include, back row, left to right: Carmen White, team leader,

Materials Support; Donna Terlisner, team leader, Document Delivery; Tracy Beeson, senior office

assistant, Borrowing- Document Delivery; Jared Koller, library assistant, Materials Support;

Kathryn Connell, manager, Document Services; front row, left to right: Anthony Pedrazine,

microcomputer specialist, Document Services; Kenneth Evans, library assistant, Materials

Support; Heather Perkins, assistant manager, Document Services; Rosa Vasquez, office

assistant, Lending- Document Delivery.

photo courtesy of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 11

The British Library Document Supply Centre

( BLDSC) has begun to use the OCLC Interlibrary

Loan Fee Management ( IFM) service.

IFM reduces library staff time allocated to pro-cessing

checks and invoices when charging for

interlibrary loan services.

“ IFM has been tremendously successful in help-ing

OCLC libraries to manage the costs of interli-brary

loan,” said Tony Melvyn, OCLC senior

consulting product support specialist. “ The more

libraries that use it, the better we can facilitate

cost control for all.

“ As a large net- lender, BLDSC will

significantly decrease its expenses

by using this service,” Mr. Melvyn

said. “ With IFM, a library can take

advantage of a standard billing pro-cedure

that lessens the cost of

billing and decreases the amount of

paperwork.”

OCLC developed this fee man-agement

system to help reduce the

administrative costs for libraries that charge or pay

other libraries for interlibrary loans. IFM was

introduced in April 1995, and more than 1,450

libraries now use the service. When the IFM ser-vice

is activated, the borrowing library receives a

debit and the lender is issued a credit. OCLC then

reconciles debits and credits on a monthly basis

and provides credits to the lenders and invoices to

the borrowers.

Participating institutions transferred over $ 7.3

million in lending fees from July 1, 2000 to June

30, 2001 and saved $ 20.4 million in processing

and invoicing fees over the past year using IFM.

The British Library Document Supply Centre

ranks as the 17th largest supplier of documents

out of the 6,600 OCLC ILL libraries. The OCLC

Interlibrary Loan System was activated in 1979.

For many years, the British Library has worked

closely with OCLC and with the OCLC- affiliated

U. S. regional networks to facilitate interlibrary

lending and document ordering from the British

Library, both through the OCLC Interlibrary Loan

and OCLC FirstSearch services.

The British Library, the national library of the

United Kingdom, cares for more than 150 million

items, including manuscripts, printed materials,

sound recordings, images and digital materials.

Each year, 8 million items are made available to

users, and 3 million items enter the collections.

More information is at < http://

www. bl. uk/ services/ bsds/ dsc/> or

< http:// www. oclc. org/ oclc/

promo/ 9112ifm/ 9112. htm>.

BLDSC holds the largest litera-ture

collection in the world dedi-cated

solely to document delivery.

Based in Boston Spa, England, the

British Library Document Supply

Centre also has a U. S. Service

Centre in Saluda, Virginia. ( telephone: 1 800 932

3575, e- mail: bl. usa. chenoweth@ bl. uk). BLDSC is

the world’s largest source of information in every

field of scientific, technical, medical and human

knowledge devoted to interlibrary loan and

document supply. It receives over 4 million

orders a year from 20,000 customers worldwide.

Loans and copies are supplied from a collection

comprising over 260,000 journal titles in virtually

all languages and subjects, 3 million books, 4 mil-lion

reports, 400,000 conference proceedings and

500,000 doctoral theses. Standard orders are

normally processed within 48 hours; rush orders

within two hours.

• • •

British Library Document Supply Centre

uses OCLC IFM service

With IFM, a library can take

advantage of a standard billing

procedure that lessens the cost

of billing and decreases the

amount of paperwork.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

12 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

Tsinghua University and OCLC to establish

Chinese Information Network

On May 30, Gan Ke, vice president of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and Jay Jordan, OCLC president and

CEO, signed at Tsinghua University a Memorandum of Intent to enter into a cooperative agreement to establish a

Chinese information network based in Beijing. The proposed network will provide Chinese information including

full text and full image in support of education and research to Chinese- language readers in China and throughout

the world. Pictured in the photo are, left to right: Andrew H. Wang, executive director, OCLC Asia Pacific; Hwa-

Wei Lee, dean emeritus, Ohio University Libraries and visiting distinguished scholar, OCLC; Jay Jordan; Wang

Dazhong, president, Tsinghua University; Gan Ke; Liu Guilin, director, Tsinghua University Library; Zhou Lizhou,

dean of Computer Science and Technology Department, Tsinghua University; and Li Jiaqian, director of

Tsinghua Press.

Library directors from China visit OCLC campus

A group of 93 library directors from China visited OCLC on Aug. 27 to tour the campus and discuss library issues

with OCLC staff. The group, from the China Society of Library Science, met with Jay Jordan, OCLC president and

CEO; Andrew Wang, executive director, OCLC Asia Pacific; and Hwa- Wei Lee, dean emeritus, Ohio University

Libraries and visiting distinguished scholar, OCLC. Following the IFLA conference in Boston, Massachusetts, the

group’s tour bus took them to Washington, D. C., and then to OCLC in Dublin, Ohio. The group also planned to stop

in San Francisco, California, before returning to China. The group’s activities were arranged by the China Society of

Library Science, headed by Qiu Dongjiang, director, International Office, China Society for Library Science and Zhou

Xiaopu, deputy director, Bureau of Social Culture and Libraries, Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China.

photo courtesy of OCLC Asia Pacific

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 13

Linda M. Evers has been appointed associate

director of the OCLC Institute.

She has extensive experience as an instructional

design manager, most recently with BISYS Fund

Services, Columbus, Ohio, and also with the

Gillette Company and Dynamics Research

Corporation, both headquartered in Massachusetts.

“ I am honored to join OCLC, the premier facili-tator

of collaborative knowledge systems and ser-vices,

at one of the most exciting times in its

history,” said Dr. Evers. “ Given the global need

and enthusiastic support for the institute, I

believe our possibilities are infinite.”

“ In addition to other duties, Dr. Evers will help

the OCLC Institute grow our e- learning business,

which got off to a successful start with the intro-duction

of ‘ Cataloging Internet Resources Using

MARC 21 and AACR2,’” said Erik Jul, executive

director, OCLC Institute. “ Her experience will

help us develop appropriate learning programs

for a global market.”

Dr. Evers earned doctoral and master’s degrees

in education from the University of Kentucky and a

bachelor’s degree in education from the University

of Pittsburgh. Her master’s degree in library and

information science at Simmons College focused

on e- learning design and archives management.

The OCLC Institute < http:// www. oclc.

org/ institute/> promotes the evolution of

libraries through advanced education and knowl-edge

exchange. Headquartered on OCLC’s

Dublin, Ohio, campus, the institute conducts edu-cational

and consulting programs worldwide.

• • •

Linda Evers joins OCLC Institute

Linda Evers

Jay Jordan, president and CEO of OCLC, has

announced the establishment of a new initiative

designed to broaden the cultural perspective of

the organization.

“ Diversity of experience and perspective will

help drive our strategic transition into the global

library cooperative we envision,” said Mr. Jordan.

“ Inclusion is rooted in our deep respect for the

individual and our belief that an inclusive envi-ronment

fosters optimal performance.”

Mel Kendall has been tapped to manage the

new Inclusion Initiative.

“ Mel will be a dedicated resource responsible

for the development and implementation of

OCLC���s corporate inclusion initiative,” said Rick

Schwieterman, vice president of Human

Resources and Finance, who will assume strategic

responsibility for the program. “ Among other

responsibilities, Mel will be working with OCLC

management to broaden the diversity of talent in

the organization and to ensure that OCLC’s culture

is hospitable to a broad spectrum of perspectives.”

Mr. Kendall started his career with OCLC in

August 1979 as an office supply clerk. His respon-sibilities

have grown through the years in a vari-ety

of positions in the company’s software

development area. He was most recently a sys-tems

analyst in the Systems Support Division.

• • •

OCLC establishes corporate Inclusion Initiative

Mel Kendall

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

14 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

Staff members from the OCLC Documentation

Department are getting out of their offices and

into yours, visiting libraries to see that they’re

providing the right kind of information and in a

form that fits the library’s workflow.

The OCLC Documentation Department is

responsible for providing information that users

need to work with OCLC products and services.

Documentation staff create manuals, reference

cards, help systems, glossaries, lists and directo-ries;

organize and manage the content of OCLC’s

web sites; and coordinate the translation of docu-mentation

and publications.

The volume of OCLC information can be stag-gering

to libraries. So the site visits help to iden-tify

what items are most useful to libraries and

where the Documentation staff should focus their

time and energy.

OCLC has always sought feedback from

libraries about documentation, using focus

groups, usability testing, surveys and other

methods to help ensure user satisfaction. But

according to Debbie Hysell, manager, OCLC

Documentation, visiting user libraries helps fill

in some gaps in other forms of communication.

“ Some of our survey findings were conflicting,”

said Ms. Hysell. “ Some users said we provide too

much documentation and some said we don’t

provide enough. Some said we provide too much

detail and some said we don’t provide enough

detail. It is clear that our users have different

needs, and some of our feedback didn’t quite give

us the context we needed to make sure we were

meeting users’ needs.”

“ Our library visits were designed partly to

resolve some of those conflicting findings,” said

Judy Barnes, OCLC user documentation specialist.

“ We need the kind of detailed feedback we’re get-ting

in our library visits.”

“ By visiting libraries, we are able to put user

feedback in context and close the communication

loop,” said Ms. Hysell.

For example, visits to the Ohio State University

Libraries and the State Library of Ohio illustrated

very different types of workflows.

“ At the state library, catalogers depend a great

deal on print documentation,” said Ms. Barnes.

“ Staff members there update their print materials

by physically adding items like technical bulletins

to their manuals. But at OSU, we found that cata-logers

used the web almost exclusively. Since

they are using the web for other tasks, they have

set up their online desktops with all the tools

they need, including links to the OCLC web site.”

A typical library visit includes introductions

and a visit to staff workspaces. “ We want to see

Library visits help Documentation staff focus

on user needs

The Access and Reference Section of the OCLC Documentation Department visited Ohio

Dominican College to discuss their use of the OCLC FirstSearch service and to get their

comments and suggestions on FirstSearch documentation. Pictured, front row, left to right, are:

Abigail Noland, Ohio Dominican Reference Department; Michelle Sarff, library director, Ohio

Dominican College; Marcy Miller, OCLC user documentation specialist; back row, left to right,

Mary Conroy, OhioNet; Jane Dishong, OCLC user documentation specialist; Ken Thomas, OCLC

user documentation specialist; and Peter Insabella, manager, Access and Reference Section,

OCLC Documentation Department.

photos courtesy OCLC Documentation Department

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 15

exactly how these library staff members are using

OCLC documentation,” said Ms. Barnes. “ We want

to see their desktops and find out what kinds of

tools they’re using to make the most of OCLC

products and services.”

Ms. Barnes said the visits are showing that for

day- to- day activities, library staff rely on short,

simple reference cards for quick and easy access

to information they need. But it’s also important

to have very detailed print manuals handy to look

up information not used as often.

“ Seeing librarians at work helps us to identify

the level of detail necessary for them to get their

work done,” said Ms. Barnes.

The library visits also confirmed the impor-tance

of using examples in documentation.

“ One library staff stated they use examples

‘ like a crutch,’” said Lois Yoakam, manager, OCLC

Cataloging and Resource Sharing Publications.

“ Documentation staff continues to encourage

members to submit examples to us so that they

can be used in manuals.”

Documentation staff members from the

Cataloging and Resource Sharing Section and mem-bers

from the Access and Reference Section have

visited libraries in separate groups. Staff from the

Content Management and Web Publishing Section

accompanied them on each

visit.

Visits so far this year

have included: State

Library of Ohio; Ohio State

University Libraries;

Earlham College, Lilly

Library; Columbus

Metropolitan Library; Ohio

Dominican Library;

OhioLink; and the Public

Library of Cincinnati and

Hamilton County.

The library visits have

been so helpful in clarify-ing

user needs that they

will be extended in the

coming year. In addition,

when traveling for other

business purposes,

Documentation staff will

plan to include a site visit in travel itineraries so

that they can see a larger geographic area without

additional costs.

Peter Insabella, manager of the Access and

Reference section of the Documentation

Department, recently visited the International

Food Policy Research Institute Library, which he

combined with a visit to the CAPCON office in

Washington, D. C. He described his library visits

as “ illuminating.” And Ms. Hysell is looking for-ward

to her upcoming visit to the University of

Missouri combined with a visit to the MLNC

office.

“ The library visits are helping us to work

smarter, move faster and focus more closely on

user needs,” said Ms. Hysell. “ What we learn is

also helping us to shape the way we think about

documentation in the future.”

The visits have also been a pleasant change of

pace for Documentation staff members, who

appreciate the cooperation and hospitality of

library staff.

“ The library staffs have been very generous

and accommodating,” said Ms. Hysell. “ They have

been incredibly well prepared, warm, welcoming

and helpful.”

• • •

The Cataloging and Resource Sharing Section of the OCLC Documentation Department visited the State Library of Ohio. Pictured,

left to right, are: Jeff Heard, head of Cataloging, State Library of Ohio; Judy Barnes, OCLC user documentation specialist; Linda

Savage, editor/ copy cataloger, State Library of Ohio; Kathy Hughes, Authority Control, State Library of Ohio; George Klim, director,

OCLC Services, OHIONET; Lois Yoakam, manager, Cataloging and Resource Sharing Section, OCLC Documentation; Judy Cerqua,

head of Technical Services, State Library of Ohio; and Ron Jones, OCLC user documentation specialist.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

16 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy

Committee ( EPC) held its 116th meeting May

9– 11 at the Library of Congress. New committee

members included Mary Carroll, National Library

of Canada, and Jessica MacPhail, Racine

( Wisconsin) Public Library. It was also the first

meeting at which Lucy Evans, British Library,

served as vice- chair.

A key outcome of the meeting

was the decision to solicit

libraries to test certain updates of

the Dewey Decimal Classification

( DDC) system in advance of final

deployment. “ This ‘ real- world’

testing will provide critical feed-back

and validation in advance of

final incorporation in the DDC,” said Joan S.

Mitchell, editor in chief, Dewey Decimal

Classification, and executive director, OCLC

Forest Press. Testing will begin with 200

Religion and 300– 307 Social sciences, sociology

and anthropology.

EPC approved various exhibits for inclusion in

DDC Edition 22: 020 Library and Information sci-ences;

070 Journalism; 150 Psychology; 370

Education; 621 Applied physics; 624 Civil engi-neering;

629.89 Computer control; and 650

Management. EPC also approved modifications or

updates to areas already approved in principle,

including: 200 Religion; 300– 307 Social sciences,

sociology, and anthropology; 330 Economics; 340

Law; 381 Commerce; and 610 Medicine.

Elements of Table 5 ( Ethnic and National Groups)

and Table 6 ( Languages) were discussed, and the

new caption for Table 5 was approved. In addi-tion,

EPC approved several exhibits for Abridged

Edition 14: 330 Economics; 350 Public adminis-tration

and military science; 360 Social problems

and social services; 390 Customs, etiquette, and

folklore; and 551.46- 47 Oceanography.

Outside reviewers’ responses to proposed

changes to 510 Mathematics

prompted much discussion; a

revised draft will be presented

at the next EPC meeting, which

will be held Dec. 3– 5, at the

Library of Congress.

The Decimal Classification

Editorial Policy Committee is a

joint committee of OCLC Forest Press and the

American Library Association. The committee

works with the editors of the Dewey Decimal

Classification system and advises OCLC Forest

Press on matters relating to the general develop-ment

of the classification. The committee’s 10

members include public, special, and academic

librarians and library educators.

OCLC Forest Press, a division of OCLC since

1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal Classification

system, the world’s most widely used system, and

a variety of related materials. More information

about OCLC Forest Press products and publica-tions

is available on the OCLC Forest Press web

site or via telephone at 1- 800- 848- 5878, extension

6237 or + 1- 614- 764- 6237.

• • •

Dewey Editorial Policy Committee meets

at the Library of Congress

Joan S. Mitchell

“ This ‘ real- world’ testing will

provide critical feedback and

validation in advance of final

incorporation in the DDC.”

OCLC Statistics

( as of Sept. 1, 2001)

Current statistics are at

< http:// www. oclc. org/ news/

product/ statistics. shtm>.

Participating

libraries

40,314

New member libraries

( July 1– Aug. 31, 2001)

99

Total OCLC Interlibrary Loan

( ILL) service requests

110,547,080

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 17

OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa and the

OCLC Institute organized a pre- conference at the

LIBER 30th annual conference,“ New Alliances,

New Services,” held at the British Library, London,

England, July 3– 7.

LIBER is the Ligue des Bibliothèques

Européennes de Recherche/ the European

Association of Research Libraries.

The title of the pre- conference was

“ Transatlantic Cooperation Furthering the Aims of

Research Libraries.”

Erik Jul, director, OCLC Institute, and Erland

Kolding Nielsen, director, Royal Library Denmark,

jointly moderated the pre- conference, which

included papers by: Janet Mitchell Lees, manag-ing

director, OCLC Europe, the Middle East &

Africa,“ OCLC and Pica: A New European Library

Organisation;” Stuart Ede, director of Collection

Management, the British Library,“ Harmonisation

of MARC and Descriptive Cataloguing Standards;”

Shirley Baker, vice- chancellor for Information

Technology and dean of libraries, Washington

University, St. Louis, and president, Association of

Research Libraries, and Rick Johnson, Scholarly

Publishing and Academic Research Coalition

( SPARC), Washington, D. C.,�� Latest Developments

from SPARC.”

A panel discussion on information infrastruc-ture

included: Shirley Baker; Esko Häkli, director,

Helsinki University Library; Rick Johnson; Tony

Mayer, European Science Foundation; and

Norman Wiseman, Joint Information Systems

Committee, UK.

LIBER is the principal association of the major

national, academic and research libraries of

Europe. It represents and promotes the interests

of national, academic and research libraries in

Europe, and its membership includes the majority

of national, academic and research libraries in the

countries of Europe.

• • •

OCLC hosts LIBER pre- conference

LIBER delegates gather in the piazza, British Library, London.

photo courtesy of OCLC Europe, the Middle East & Africa

Highest OCLC

record number

47,892,054

Location listings

( holdings)

808,758,995

FirstSearch libraries

19,105

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

18 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

There are about 1,100 associate degree- granting

institutions serving 10 million full and part- time

students in the United States, according to the

American Association of Community Colleges.

Community colleges prepare students for four-year

colleges and for careers in medical, service

and technical fields, and help workers stay up- to-date

in their current positions. These schools

have also been pioneers in distance education

and community partnerships with the business

world. And they all have libraries.

In recognition of these facts, OCLC invited

14 community college library deans and adminis-trators

to meet with OCLC staff and managers at

the Dublin campus on July 27 to exchange ideas

about the emerging community college library

and OCLC’s role in furthering this emergence.

The meeting opened with presentations by

Pam Kircher, manager, OCLC Digital Archive, and

Chip Nilges, director of new product planning,

OCLC Discovery and Fulfillment Services, on

aspects of the OCLC strategy.

Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO, engaged

the group in a far- ranging discussion of OCLC’s

international strategy, product plans and increas-ing

advocacy for libraries. There was considerable

discussion of the Cooperative Digital Reference

Service, the 24/ 7 reference pilot sponsored by the

Library of Congress and supported by OCLC.

The librarians then presented their perspec-tives

on how commu-nity

colleges are

changing and what

OCLC could do to

facilitate these

changes. Among the

trends identified were

rapid advances in dis-tance

education, the

shifting borders

between two- year and

four- year colleges, the

need for more training

for both librarians and

support staff, and the

increasing reliance on

online resources. The

group also suggested

changes in how

OCLC prices and

markets its services

to this segment.

The meeting

wrapped up with a

promise to continue

the dialogue between

OCLC and community

college librarians.

Librarians meet at OCLC to discuss

community college library needs

Community college library deans and administrators met with OCLC staff and managers on the Dublin, Ohio, campus July 27.

Participants included, front row, left to right: David Voros, dean of Learning Resources at Lehigh Carbon ( Pennsylvania) Community

College; Marie Zimmerman, Highline ( Washington) Community College; Marianne Rough, Prince George’s ( Maryland) Community

College; Rita Williams Jones, City College of San Francisco; Jay Clark, San Jacinto ( Texas) College Central; Carol Norman,

Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges; Cynthia Steinhoff, Anne Arundel ( Maryland) Community College; Donald J.

Muccino, OCLC executive vice president and COO; back row, Richard Madaus, College Center for Library Automation ( Florida); J.

William Locke, Harold Washington College ( Illinois); Gregg Atkins, director of the Sacramento City College Library; Jay Jordan,

OCLC president and CEO; Bernard Fradkin, College of DuPage ( Illinois); Richard Shaw, Technical College of the Lowcountry ( South

Carolina); and Paul E. Dumont, director of Educational Resources Support Services for the Dallas County ( Texas) Community

College District.

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 19

This dialogue may be formalized into a new advi-sory

committee for this segment to complement

other type- of- library committees.

Linda Arnold, OCLC Member Relations

Program officer, organized the meeting in con-junction

with Paul E. Dumont, a former member

of the Amigos Library Services Board of Trustees

and a newly elected delegate to the OCLC

Members Council. Mr. Dumont is the director of

Educational Resources Support Services for the

Dallas County ( Texas) Community College

District. Gregg Atkins, director of the Sacramento

City College Library, and the immediate past chair

of ACRL’s Community and Junior College Section,

and David Voros, dean of Learning Resources at

Lehigh Carbon ( Pennsylvania) Community

College Library and the current chair of the ACRL

group, also helped identify participants and plan

the agenda.

Other participants included Jay Clark, San

Jacinto ( Texas) College Central; Bernard Fradkin,

College of DuPage ( Illinois); Rita Williams Jones,

City College of San Francisco; J. William Locke,

Harold Washington College ( Illinois); Richard

Madaus, College Center for Library Automation

( Florida); Carol Norman, Chancellor’s Office,

California Community Colleges; Marianne Rough,

Prince George’s ( Maryland) Community College;

Richard Shaw, Technical College of the

Lowcountry ( South Carolina); Cynthia Steinhoff,

Anne Arundel ( Maryland) Community College;

Marie Zimmerman, Highline ( Washington)

Community College, and a delegate to Members

Council. Susan Anderson, St. Petersburg College

( Florida), participated by conference call.

• • •

During the ALA Annual Conference in San

Francisco, California, in June, attendees entered a

drawing sponsored by OCLC Public Affairs

Information Service.

Winners received a one- year subscription to

the PAIS International database on the OCLC

FirstSearch service. The winners are:

• John De La Fontaine, Occidental College

Library, Los Angeles, California

• Sasa Madacki, Human Rights Centre, University

of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Kelly Janousek, California State University—

Long Beach

• Nitza Williams, Grosse Pointe Public Library,

Michigan

PAIS International contains references to more

than 479,000 journal articles, books, government

documents, statistical directories, grey literature,

research reports, conference reports, publications

of international agencies, microfiche, Internet

material and more. Newspapers and newsletters

are not indexed.

PAIS International includes publications from

over 120 countries throughout the world. In

addition to English, some of the indexed materials

are published in French, German, Italian,

Portuguese and Spanish.

OCLC Public Affairs Information Service is a

nonprofit publisher founded in 1914 and dedi-cated

to providing better access to the literature

of public affairs— current issues and actions that

affect world communities, countries, people and

governments.

• • •

Winners of PAIS International

subscription drawings announced

M E M B E R S H I P N E W S

20 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

OCLC INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES UPCOMING 2001 SCHEDULE

The OCLC Institute has announced its latest schedule of seminars.

DATE SEMINAR TITLE CO- SPONSOR AND LOCATION

October 29��� 30 Developing a Global Library Strategy and Peking University, Beijing,

Measuring Academic Library Performance People’s Republic of China

November 1– 2 Planning in a Time of Rapid Technological Change NELINET, Southborough, Massachusetts

November 5– 6 Library Management in the Knowledge Age PALINET, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

November 5– 7 Knowledge Management: Methods & Systems OHIONET, Dublin, Ohio

November 5– 7 Creating a New Reference Librarianship CBPQ, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

November 15– 16 Strategic Management OCLC EMEA, Birmingham,

United Kingdom

November 15– 16 Knowledge Access Management and COBISS/ SICRIS,

Reference Librarianship Maribor, Slovenia

November 28– 29 Library Management in the Knowledge Age MLNC, St. Louis, Missouri

December 2– 3 Developing a Global Library Strategy and National Central Library,

Measuring Academic Library Performance Taipei, Taiwan

December 3– 5 Creating a New Reference Librarianship Vancouver Public Library,

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

December 6– 7 Developing a Global Library Strategy and Thai Library Association,

Measuring Academic Library Performance Thailand

The OCLC Institute promotes the evolution of libraries through advanced education and knowledge exchange. The

OCLC Institute conducts educational and consulting programs worldwide. For information on any of the OCLC Institute

seminars visit < http:// www. oclc. org/ institute/> or call + 1- 614- 761- 5212.

• • •

R E S E A R C H

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 21

by Robert C. Bolander

The second Research

Advisory Committee ( RAC)

meeting of 2001 was con-ducted

as a retreat on Aug.

6– 7 at Deer Creek State

Park, a short distance south

of the OCLC Dublin cam-pus.

In addition to the

OCLC Office of Research

( OR) staff, two RAC members attended: Bruce

Morton, dean of libraries at Montana State

University, and Herbert Van de Sompel, who was

visiting assistant professor of computer science at

Cornell University and is now at the British

Library. They were joined by Janifer Gatenby, con-sultant,

Pica, Leiden, the Netherlands, and Jay

Jordan, OCLC president and CEO.

The two- fold focus of the retreat was “ disrup-tive

change” and “ strategic choice.” Participants

had reviewed a set of background readings prior

to the retreat, and Lorcan Dempsey, vice presi-dent,

OCLC Office of Research, and former RAC

member, framed the day’s work by noting the gen-eral

trend of content being produced in digital,

rather than physical, form. This change affects all

aspects of the information cycle, including its

organization, the technology utilized, marketing

processes within it, and the value embedded in

and expressed through it.

Regarding organization, for example, libraries,

governments as document producers, and

archives used to be separate; now they share

increasingly common spaces. This, in turn, results

in a variety of boundary issues. Dublin Core ( DC)

was mentioned as a good example of this: ONYX,

IMS, Geospatial all interact with DC; but they do

not interact with the rest of OCLC. Furthermore,

chains are becoming webs. There are new aggre-gators,

and the scene is much more complex than

traditional supplier/ distributor chains.

Technology facilitates the breakdown of

boundaries, allowing the fixed information units

represented by books to flow into increasingly

large aggregations, with the need to be managed

over time and linked to other resources.

Furthermore, rights management issues come to

the fore, generating further concerns that run

right back into boundary issues.

Participants met in small groups on the first

morning to assess several technologies and trends

potentially disruptive to current operations of

OCLC and/ or libraries in general. Reports of the

small- group discussions filled the first afternoon

and spilled over into the evening social hour and

cookout. At least one general conversation con-tinued

well after dark, as participants considered

such issues as the core competencies of libraries

and OCLC, and the tension between incremen-tally

building on current strengths versus taking

risks on potential opportunities that might be dis-ruptive

if successful, but could be detrimental if

missed.

Participants considered two topics on the sec-ond

day. They first developed criteria for assess-ing

research opportunities, then discussed what

elements made for successful transfer of ideas,

practices and projects from the OR to the rest of

OCLC and the wider library community.

Participants once again broke into small groups,

this time to generate strategic criteria and transfer

Thom Hickey, OCLC chief scientist, and Lorcan Dempsey, vice

president, OCLC Office of Research, discuss issues.

photos by Robert C. Bolander

Office of Research, Research Advisory Committee

discuss change and choice

R E S E A R C H

22 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

Tukaram Kumbar, scientist at the Information and

Library Network Centre in Ahmedabad, India, has

been named OCLC Visiting Scholar for a six- month

term beginning in August.

The Visiting Scholar program is sponsored by

the OCLC Office of Research to bring experi-enced

scientists, educators and administrators to

OCLC.

During his tenure, Dr. Kumbar will study the

OCLC cooperative and identify how Indian

libraries can successfully participate in the global

library cooperative for the benefit of scholars and

academia in India as well as worldwide.

Since December 1997, Dr. Kumbar has been a

scientist at the Information and Library Network

Center ( INFLIBNET), which was established by

the government of India to develop and promote

automation of university and research libraries.

Dr. Kumbar studied library automation and

resource sharing at the University of California,

Irvine in 1995- 96 through a fellowship from the

American Library Association/ United States

Information Agency. Recently, he was chosen to

receive a Fulbright Fellowship in Information

Science and Technology, which supports his

research in the United States.

Dr. Kumbar received a bachelor of arts degree,

a master of political science degree, and a master

of library and information science degree from

Karnatak University in Dharwad, India. In 1996,

he was awarded a doctoral degree in library and

information science from Gulbarga University in

Gulbarga, India.

• • •

Tukaram Kumbar named OCLC Visiting Scholar

Tukaram Kumbar

elements. They later reconvened in plenary to orga-nize

and assess the work of the small groups.

Selected criteria for evaluating research projects

include immediacy, potential value ( to OCLC and

the larger LIS community), increasing operational

effectiveness, and leveraging products and services

to create new value. Some potential improvements

for transitions from OR to the rest of OCLC

included increasing use of modular and open-source

software, the use of communication plans

and transition teams, and the potential for co-development

projects.

Mr. Jordan encouraged participants to be bold

and seize opportunities, rather than risk being

passed by as the environment changes rapidly.

— Robert C. Bolander is manager, Communica-tions

and Programs, OCLC Office of Research.

Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO, pictured at right, discusses research with OCLC staff and • • •

Research Advisory Committee members. Pictured, clockwise, from bottom: Chandra Prabha,

OCLC senior research scientist; Diane Vizine- Goetz, OCLC consulting research scientist; Tom

Terrall, OCLC senior systems analyst; and Bruce Morton, Research Advisory Committee member

and dean of libraries, Montana State University, Bozeman.

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 23

by Meg Bellinger

Just a scant five years ago,

early visitors to the World

Wide Web would have

echoed Gertrude Stein’s

famous words,“ There’s no

there there.” Search

engines were difficult to

use, and even if you found a

site there wasn’t likely to be

much of value on it. Today our entire information

landscape has changed— and continues to change

at a dizzying pace. End users now fully expect to

have their information needs met via electronic

content delivered over the web. The technology

exists to meet this demand. As a result, libraries

and other organizations in the business of serving

the information- consuming public are under pres-sure

to deliver.

Libraries, publishers, museums, historical soci-eties

and government agencies of many types and

sizes collectively hold a tremendous body of edu-cational,

cultural and historical material, the value

of which would be greatly enhanced if it could

be made accessible over the web.

As international standards and protocols have

emerged that make it possible to create virtual

libraries, digital collections are bursting onto the

information landscape at a breathtaking pace.

While the capacity to create digital content is

great, and the appetite for them seemingly insa-tiable,

much work remains to make the infrastruc-ture

for creation, description, storage, access and

preservation of digital resources as robust as that

which exists to support physical media. Libraries

in particular need a preservation strategy for digi-tal

objects, since digitization alone provides

access but not preservation.

To help libraries meet the growing demand for

electronic access from the desktop and to manage

the life cycle of digital assets, OCLC is expanding

its digitization and preservation capacities.

Currently, OCLC Preservation Resources helps

libraries to create surrogate copies of materials

either through preservation microfilming or

digitization. Three new OCLC initiatives will

bring to libraries a complete digital collection life

cycle management solution that allows them to

digitize and preserve collections, provide

enhanced access to collections, and give their col-lections

added value by combining them with col-lections

from other institutions. Together, the

Digital Archive, the Digital Co- op, and the Digital

and Preservation Resources Centers will provide

libraries with one source to support cooperative

approaches to digital collection development,

management and preservation.

The heart of OCLC’s programs will be a Digital

Co- op, which will provide libraries access to a

global network for digital collection management,

coordinated access to grants, and collaborative

implementation. For larger libraries, the co- op

will provide focus and coordination to serve

effectively the world’s scholars. For smaller

libraries, the co- op will provide leverage, educa-tion

and coordination to help them share their

unique collections more broadly. The work of

the co- op will provide collections that can be

made accessible and preserved through the

Digital Archive.

By working with OCLC, libraries

will be able to leverage the invest-ment

they make in digitization

by providing enhanced access

to their collections and ensur-ing

their preservation

through long- term retention

strategies. Publishers, aggre-gators

and libraries can rely

on OCLC to retain born-digital

content. The

technology is ready— now

we must put it to work.

— Meg Bellinger

is president,

OCLC

Preservation

Resources.

• • •

OCLC Digital and Preservation Resources:

Delivering on the technology promise

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

24 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

by Taylor Surface

In 1967, OCLC was formed

when a group of Ohio uni-versities

and colleges joined

together with a common

goal of managing and shar-ing

information in the dawn-ing

Electronic Age.

Similarly, today, OCLC is

playing a leadership role as

libraries seek to manage, share and preserve infor-mation

in the Digital Age. Beginning later this

year, OCLC will introduce new services to help

libraries and other institutions to create, preserve,

manage and store digital collections.

The world’s learners are increas-ingly

turning to the World Wide Web

for access to knowledge. The more

they find available electronically, the

more they expect to be able to find,

putting pressure on libraries and

other organizations to provide access

from the desktop to more and more resources.

To meet users’ needs, libraries are digitizing

existing physical, analog collections to make them

web- accessible as well as providing access to the

increasing amount of resources that exist only in

digital form. Providing digital access comes at a

high cost to libraries, in terms of time invested in

planning and implementation, as well as budget

dollars needed to bring digital resources to users.

This digital investment changes the landscape of

the library offering and dramatically alters the

way libraries must provide care and maintenance

of their resources.

The challenges facing libraries are three- fold:

• Controlling costs for digitization, preservation

and enhanced access

• Supporting the investment in digitization by

expanding access to collections

• Ensuring long- term access to digitized

collections

To help libraries meet these challenges, OCLC

is introducing three new services— Digital and

Preservation Resources Centers, the Digital

Co- op, and the Digital Archive— that will provide

a complete digital collections management and

preservation solution.

OCLC Digital and Preservation

Resources Centers

Libraries today have myriad collections in analog

format that their users— and worldwide users—

would welcome the opportunity to access elec-tronically.

These collections include retrospective

newspapers, books, pamphlets and journals, man-uscript

collections, archival records, scrapbooks,

photograph collections, maps and other large-format

graphic items, glass plate negatives, slides

and transparencies. To assist in creating digital

collections, OCLC will offer services from the

Digital and Preservation Resources ( DPR)

Centers.

The DPR Centers will offer

several key benefits for libraries

that want to meet user needs

with more digitized resources.

First, libraries will save money

on their digitization projects by

reducing the training costs, ini-tial

investment in facilities, equipment and ongo-ing

upgrades necessary to support reformatting

projects. Second, the OCLC DPR Centers are part

of a total solution for libraries, not just a single

isolated service; so libraries not only get a refor-matted

collection, but also they get options for

storage, distribution and collection development.

And third, libraries will have a menu of services

so they can select the appropriate type and level

of service for each specific project. Services

range from basic reformatting to metadata cre-ation,

text conversion and mark- up, and delivery

of web- ready packages of digital collections.

The DPR Centers will expand the types of ser-vices

now available through OCLC Preservation

Resources to serve cultural institutions’ needs for

preservation reformatting and digital collection

creation. Service will be expanded geographically

through the development of regional centers,

beginning with a reformatting services center

within the Western Service Center in Lacey,

Washington. OCLC will be pursuing partnerships

to expand DPR center capacity and already has

several partnerships in development around the

world.

The DPR Centers will assist collection managers

by providing options for preserving collections and

Helping libraries manage the digital collection life cycle

OCLC is playing a leadership role

as libraries seek to manage,

share and preserve information

in the Digital Age.

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 25

enhancing access to collections. Institutions can

create surrogates of special collections and unique

items through preservation microfilming or

through digital image creation. For items that are

microfilmed, the DPR Centers can provide micro-film

storage and distribution. For items that are

digitized, the OCLC Digital Archive will provide

long- term preservation capabilities. This archiving

capability allows OCLC to offer libraries and other

institutions a digitization preservation strategy, not

just increased access through digitization.

In addition, for collections that are already

digitized, the DPR Centers will offer Access

Enrichment Services to increase the collections’

search accessibility. Digitized collections can be

enriched with metadata, full- text conversion

with mark- up, and preparation for web pub-lication

through the use of web- based content

access software.

The DPR Centers will be closely tied to the

Digital Archive and the Digital Co- op. Once

collections are digitized, they can be stored in the

archive for immediate access as well as long- term

retention. Under the auspices of the co- op,

collections can be combined to form new collec-tions

for even greater access.

OCLC Digital Co- op

Currently, digitization projects are emerging

throughout the world with varying degrees of

coordination to provide networked research

accessibility to a worldwide community. What’s

missing is a focal point for collaboration to iden-tify

support and digitization information for

libraries and other institutions seeking to digitize,

preserve and publish collections.

The OCLC Digital Co- op will provide:

• Enhanced access to grant funding and funding

assistance. The co- op can be used as a

clearinghouse for grant information, grant

writing assistance and consultation on grant

management. Together, these services will

increase the likelihood of winning funding and

reduce each individual institution’s cost for

seeking funding.

• Increased access to digital collections and to

partners for developing collections. The co- op

will serve as a “ matchmaker,” helping libraries

and other institutions to identify partners for

digital and preservation cooperative projects.

Cooperative projects will increase reference

and research access to the institution’s own

resources as well as to the resources of other

institutions.

• Increased exposure to special collections

through the OCLC FirstSearch service. On

behalf of the co- op, OCLC will market the

availability of digital collections to the

appropriate target audiences and distribute a

Digital Collections Subscription List through

tens of thousands of institutions using

FirstSearch. The contributing institutions and

the published collection will be instantly more

visible to the world’s learners, with no

additional marketing effort on the part of

the participants.

• Access to preservation and digitization

expertise. Co- op participants will tap into the

centralized project management skills of OCLC

and other co- op participants and have access

to advisory groups of subject experts drawn

from the co- op. Co- op participants will have

access to consultation and education and

training on topics such as selection for

preservation and digitization, preservation of

collections, digitization and metadata creation,

and rights management.

All co- op participants will benefit from the

results of collaborative implementation through

education and development of standards and best

practices, and access to a growing body of net-worked

digital collections worldwide.

OCLC Digital Archive

In considering storage of digital collections,

libraries are faced with numerous decisions.

Is the collection being stored as “ back- up” protec-tion

or is ongoing access required? Is access today

all that’s important, or is it critical that the collec-tion

be accessible over the long- term, even if its

format has become outdated? Does the library

retain the rights to provide access to the collec-tion,

or relinquish those rights to a third party?

In designing the OCLC Digital Archive, OCLC

has built in the flexibility for libraries and those

serving libraries to choose the type of storage

needed for each collection so that they don’t

pay for more than they need for that specific

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

26 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

collection. Libraries can choose to have “ contin-ual

access” to collections needed frequently or

“ dark storage” as back up for collections stored

for ongoing access on their own or someone

else’s server. Libraries retain the rights to their

collections, controlling access to them and decid-ing

if collections are available only to their con-stituents,

to select groups, or to the entire

worldwide community accessing WorldCat. For

long- term retention, the Digital Archive will offer

Format Protection Service, providing ongoing

management of technological changes to ensure

continued access to documents as formats are

abandoned or changed over time ( e. g., reading

an HTML document 20 years from now).

The OCLC Digital Archive will be part of the

growing network of digital repositories accessible

via the web. Collections in the Digital Archive

will consist of information that has been born

digitally, paper- based collections that have been

or will be converted to digital formats, and born-digital

collections such as e- journals and e- books.

Access to the collections in the Digital Archive

will be from library catalogs, the OCLC

FirstSearch service, and other web indexes.

Managing the Digital Collection

Life Cycle

In developing the DPR Centers, the Digital Co- op,

and the Digital Archive, OCLC is providing

libraries with a full range of services to manage

the life cycle of their digital collections— from

reformatting and search access enhancements, to

collection development and access, to storage for

access and long- term retention. In addition, as

these new services are developed, a suite of digi-tal

content management tools will be made avail-able

to libraries to assist them in managing and

publishing their digital collections.

Scheduled for introduction over the next 12

months, these new Digital Age services represent

an extension of OCLC, the cooperative vision that

was born in 1967 and continues today as we cele-brate

the 30th anniversary of WorldCat.

For more information on OCLC Digital and

Preservation Resources Services, contact me

by telephone at + 1- 614- 761- 5145 or e- mail at

< taylor_ surface@ oclc. org>.— Taylor Surface is

director, OCLC Content Management Services.

• • •

by Shirley Hyatt

Digital Preservation was a

popular topic at the ALA

Annual Conference in San

Francisco, California, in

June. OCLC hosted five

preservation- related events,

with a total of 380 people

attending. A pre- conference

symposium was held along

with three general presenta-tions

about new OCLC initiatives, a reception for

the Preservation Administrators Discussion

Group, and demonstrations at the OCLC booth of

the upcoming Web Document Digital Archive

pilot program.

Of special interest was the Digital Preservation

Symposium, facilitated by Meg Bellinger, presi-dent,

OCLC Preservation Resources. She

explained that the challenges associated with digi-tal

preservation exist in a continuum of actions.

Our ability to access digital information will be

profoundly affected by the provisions we make

now to ensure long- term retention. For tradi-tional

analog library materials, preservation has

often been in the form of triage. Organizations

like Preservation Resources have been created to

provide mass, production- level retroactive preser-vation

actions— in some cases to save the informa-tional

content only when the artifact is too far

gone, or sometimes to mend and halt the deterio-ration

of the artifact itself. For digital informa-tion,

such mass intervention in the future will be

prohibitively expensive, if even possible. For the

digital future, preservation planning must be con-sidered

during creation, retention and access.

Four primary objectives for this symposium

included raising awareness of the importance and

need for digital preservation, defining terms and

activities of long- term digital data retention, shar-ing

perspectives on international digital preserva-tion,

and strengthening the case for cooperative

digital preservation.

Digital preservation at ALA Annual 2001

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 27

Donald J. Muccino, OCLC executive vice presi-dent

and chief operating officer, opened the pro-gram

with an overview of OCLC’s new strategic

focus, which implements initiatives to manage

digital preservation through the OCLC Digital and

Preservation Resources ( DPR) Division. DPR will

include the Digital Co- op, the Digital Archive,

Digital and Preservation Resources Centers, and

Digital Collection Management Tools.

Speakers included Robin Dale, program officer

at Research Libraries Group; Vanessa Marshall,

director of the National Preservation Office at

the British Library; Lydia Preiss, manager of

Collection Preservation at the National Library

of Australia; and Stephen Chapman, preservation

librarian for Digital Initiatives at Harvard

University Library. Speakers defined digital

preservation, examined the risks and challenges

for the various types of materials needing preser-vation,

explained the importance of metadata,

and discussed developing strategies and stan-dards.

In conclusion, a case study illustrated how

to provide access to digital materials and ensure

their long- term retention.

Vanessa Marshall provided insight and perspec-tive

from the experience of putting a digital

preservation program into place at the National

Preservation Office ( NPO). Established in 1984,

the NPO assumed responsibility for digital items

in 1996, so Dr. Marshall had much sage advice to

offer. She reminded attendees that the fundamen-tal

issues of digital preservation are very like the

issues of preservation generally. The library and

preservation professional already has the basic

know- how and principles to deal with digital

material collections. The key difference between

traditional preservation and digital preservation is

that with electronic media the decision about

access needs to be made up front. “ Access must

be what drives the agenda,” Dr. Marshall said. As

it turned out, this was a recurring theme among

the speakers.

Stephen Chapman gave a detailed tutorial on

what digital preservation is: “ the series of man-aged

activities necessary to ensure continued

access to and preservation of digital materials.”

In digital preservation management, we assume

obligations to ensure data persistence, to pro-vide

access and, to some extent, to maintain the

integrity of the data. Mr. Chapman also provided

an overview of the OAIS ( Open Archival

Information System) reference model, which is a

conceptual framework for an archival system ded-icated

to preserving and maintaining access to

digital information over the long term. The pur-pose

of the reference model is to increase aware-ness

and understanding of concepts relevant for

archiving digital objects, especially among nonar-chival

institutions; elucidate terminology and con-cepts

for describing and comparing data models

and archival architectures; expand consensus on

the elements and processes endemic to digital

information preservation and access; and create a

framework to guide the identification and devel-opment

of standards. More information on the

OAIS model can be found in the January/ February

issue of OCLC Newsletter < www. oclc. org/

research/ publications/ newsletter/ repubs/

lavoie243/>.

Mr. Chapman, like Dr. Marshall, emphasized

that traditional preservation is the model for digi-tal

preservation and reiterated that the ongoing

future usability of the items is the driving factor

Vanessa Marshall in decision- making.

Stephen Chapman

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

28 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

Robin Dale of RLG dis-cussed

the digital preserva-tion

metadata standards

landscape. Since March

2000, OCLC and RLG have

been collaborating to provide

leadership in identifying

essential preservation meta-data

elements and deter-mining

best practices for

implementation, and

determining the characteris-tics

of reliable digital reposi-tories,

and tools, to support

institutions seeking to build

archiving services. Both col-laborative

efforts thus far have resulted in papers:

one white paper on the “ state of the art” in

preservation metadata, located at < www. oclc.

org. digitalpreservation. org>; and one on the

attributes of a trusted digital repository ( see

article, this section).

These overviews were capped off with a case

study. Lydia Preiss presented the National Library

of Australia’s experience with implementing the

Preserving and Accessing Networked

Documentary Resources of Australia project

( PANDORA), an archive of Australian online

publications, including the web site for the 2000

Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She stated

that one of the essential ingredients for success is

a “ dogged refusal to give up on a good idea���.

— Shirley Hyatt is Marketing and Communica-tions

director, OCLC Office of Research.

• • •

The Digital Preservation Symposium at ALA

Annual in San Francisco was videotaped, and

OCLC is making the tapes available through

Interlibrary Loan. Requests for this video—

OCLC control number 47956445— may be

sent to the OCLC Information Center, holding

symbol OCC.

Libraries that do not participate in the OCLC

Interlibrary Library Loan ( ILL) service may send

requests on the ALA interlibrary loan request

form to: OCLC Information Center, P. O. Box

7777, Dublin, OH, 43017- 0702. Borrowed

videotapes may be freely duplicated for the

borrowing institution’s use.

All presentations are available at < www. oclc.

org/ events/ presentations/ symposium/>.

• • •

Videotape of Digital Preservation Symposium

available via interlibrary loan

Donald J. Muccino, OCLC executive vice president and COO,

speaks at the Digital Preservation Symposium.

Lydia Preiss

Robin Dale

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 29

OCLC, with input from several organizations, is

developing a digital archive to track and preserve

web- based documents that exist solely in elec-tronic

format.

The goal of the Web Document Digital Archive

project is to create a sustainable service to provide

long- term access to web documents. The service

will fill libraries’ basic needs for identification,

selection, capture, description, preservation and

access to documents that would not be accessible

in the future otherwise.

OCLC is seeking direct

input on the project from a

variety of institutions already

focused on the issue: The

U. S. Government Printing

Office ( GPO); The

Connecticut State Library; and the Joint Electronic

Records Repository Initiative ( JERRI), a partner-ship

of the State Library of Ohio, the Ohio

Historical Society’s State Archives, the Ohio

Supercomputer Center and the Ohio Department

of Administrative Services.

“ Participants will be collaborating with OCLC

on system user requirements, evaluating working

prototypes through ‘ hands- on’ experience, and

developing policies and practices for long- term

retention in concert with current best practices

established through other digital archive projects

internationally,” said Taylor Surface, director, OCLC

Content Management Services. “ Long- term reten-tion

and access to documents published on the

World Wide Web have universal appeal to libraries

and people seeking the information in them.”

This pilot will be tested in several phases dur-ing

the next 18 months using the Open Archival

Information System ( OAIS) model to develop a

working digital archive. Building on this soon- to-be

international standard, the Web Document

Digital Archive will provide a unique integration

of workflow to assist library staff in management

of these electronic- only publications. OAIS

defines the framework of functions and features

of a basic digital archive.

“ GPO is excited to be part of OCLC’s Web

Document Digital Archive project to develop a

system to provide the same stability of access to

digital publications that can be achieved with

print publications,” said Gil Baldwin, director of

the Library Program Service, GPO. “ I believe that

this metadata and archiving toolkit will help GPO

further its mission to provide permanent public

access to the electronic government resources in

the Federal Depository Library Program.”

“ State government information nowadays is

published predominantly, in some cases exclu-sively,

on the web,” said Stephen Slovasky, biblio-graphic

services head, Connecticut State Library.

“ We intend, through the Digital Archive, to cap-ture,

preserve, provide access to, and manage

the usage rights of electronic state documents.

The Connecticut State Library is pleased to collab-orate

with OCLC, GPO and

the Ohio JERRI group on

developing this important

service.”

“ The JERRI partners have

spent considerable time and

energy investigating ways to identify, capture

and permanently store web publications of

enduring historical value created by State of

Ohio government agencies,” said Jim Buchman,

head of public services, State Library of Ohio.

“ To date we have found no off- the- shelf solution

to satisfy our requirements. The JERRI partners

are quite pleased that OCLC is now developing

such a solution.”

Work on the Web Document Digital Archive

project will be informed by the developments of

the Preservation Metadata working group con-vened

by OCLC and RLG. The working group has

published an initial white paper of current best

practices at < http:// www. oclc. org/

digitalpreservation>.

“ Goals of the project coincide with OCLC’s

global strategy, which includes establishing meta-data,

digital collection and preservation manage-ment,

and providing web- based services for

contribution, discovery, exchange, delivery and

presentation,” said Meg Bellinger, president of

OCLC Preservation Resources.

The project is part of OCLC’s global strategy

and the development of Digital Collections

Management & Preservation services.

The Government Printing Office catalogs items

distributed through the federal depository pro-gram

into WorldCat. GPO makes government

publications in all formats freely accessible to the

public through more than 1,300 federal deposi-tory

libraries throughout the United States.

Online and print publications cataloged and dis-seminated

by GPO provide information of current

OCLC collaborates to develop digital archive

of web documents

The goal of the Web Document Digital Archive

project is to create a sustainable service to

provide long- term access to web documents.

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

30 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

and enduring interest on a broad assortment of

topics, including congressional documents, fed-eral

research, business, science, technology, statis-tical

data, law, medicine and federal regulations.

The Connecticut State Library is the principal

library for all branches of state government.

It provides reference services and specialized

collections in law and legislation; public admin-istration

and policy; state, federal and local

government; Connecticut history and genealogy;

newspapers; and archives in support of its mission

“ to provide high- quality library and information

services to state government and the citizens

of Connecticut,” and “ to preserve and make

accessible the records of Connecticut’s history

and heritage.”

The Joint Electronic Records Repository is a

collaborative partnership of the Technology

Policy Group of the Ohio Supercomputer Center,

the Ohio Historical Society’s State Archives, the

State Library of Ohio, and the Ohio Department

of Administrative Services. Its purpose is to find

ways to appraise, preserve and provide access to

Ohio’s electronic and e- commerce records of

enduring historical value, and to position Ohio as

a leader in archiving electronic records and publi-cations.

Currently, the group is in the planning

stage of a pilot electronic records long- term stor-age

and retrieval program for state records.

• • •

RLG has released the second report developed in

collaboration with OCLC to advance long- term

retention of digital research materials.

Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository: Meet-ing

the Needs for Research Resources is freely avail-able

as a PDF document from the RLG web site at

< www. rlg. org/ longterm/ attributes01. pdf> and is

linked from < www. oclc. org/ digitalpreservation>

and www. oclc. org/ presres/>.

This 52- page paper is intended to prompt

consideration and discussion worldwide.

Stakeholders in the effort to preserve digital

materials are urged to read it and comment to

Robin. Dale@ notes. rlg. org by early October 2001.

“ I hope this will provide a framework and pre-cipitate

a debate for people to make declarations

about archiving services that can be understood

in a broad system context,” said RLG president

James Michalko. “ Ultimately, I’d like to see the

debate result in some small number of trusted,

reliable service providers, whether they are

research institutions themselves or third parties.”

“ OCLC’s collaboration with RLG and other

leading institutions to explore digital preservation

issues and share the findings will benefit libraries

and their users around the world,” said Jay Jordan,

OCLC president and chief executive officer.

“ OCLC’s digital archiving initiatives are guided by

active participation in this working group and

other key projects.”

Dialogue is needed on the standards, criteria,

and mechanisms for certifying digital information

repositories to help achieve an international con-sensus.

The report is relevant to local, regional,

national and international efforts— successful

scholarship in the future will depend heavily on

coordinated, interoperable digital archiving.

While intended primarily for research institu-tions

and specifically for libraries and archives,

this report contains guidance and recommen-dations

applicable to any organization interested

in long- term maintenance of and continuing

access to digital materials. It highlights some

key strategic issues as it focuses on practical

assistance to administrators and implementers

of digital archiving services.

The paper builds on the foundations laid down

in Preserving Digital Information: Report of the

Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information

( 1996), a watershed paper < www. rlg. org/

ArchTF/ index. html> commissioned by RLG

and the Commission on Preservation and Access,

as well as on the more recent Open Archival

Information System ( OAIS) reference model

advanced by the Consultative Committee for

Space Data Systems ( 148- page, July 2001 PDF

RLG and OCLC release paper for comment:

Attributes of a Trusted Repository for Digital Materials

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 31

document:< www. ccsds. org/ rpa117/

CCSDS- 650.0- R- 2. pdf>).

Readers of the Attributes report need not be

expert in technical details; it calls for a general

awareness of digital preservation and surrounding

issues. In five sections, the paper:

• proposes a definition of a trusted digital

repository

• identifies the primary attributes of such a

repository

• articulates a framework for developing a

certification program

• identifies the responsibilities of an OAIS-compliant

digital repository

• makes several recommendations for follow- on

work

The expert working group charged by RLG and

OCLC to develop Attributes of a Trusted Digital

Repository comprised Neil Beagrie, Joint

Information Systems Committee, UK; Meg

Bellinger, Preservation Resources, OCLC; Robin

Dale, RLG; Marianne Doerr, Bayerische

Staatsbibliothek; Margaret Hedstrom, University

of Michigan; Anne Kenney, Cornell University;

Catherine Lupovici, Bibliothèque national de

France; Kelly Russell, Cedars Project ( CURL

Exemplars in Digital Archives), UK; and Colin

Webb, National Library of Australia.

The first report resulting from the RLG- OCLC

collaborative effort to create infrastructures for

digital archiving was Preservation Metadata for

Digital Objects: A Review of the State of the Art.

That 50- page white paper was issued in March

2001 and is available at < www. oclc. org/

digitalpreservation>.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California,

RLG < www. rlg. org> is a not- for- profit member-ship

corporation of over 160 universities, national

libraries, archives, historical societies and other

institutions with remarkable collections for

research and learning. In addition to a range of

collaborative activities that address members’

shared goals for these collections, RLG develops

and operates databases and software to serve the

information needs of member and nonmember

institutions and individuals around the world.

• • •

by George Barnum

In July 2001, the Library

Programs Services of the

United States

Government

Printing Office

( GPO) began the

first phase of a

pilot project using

OCLC’s Web

Document Digital Archive, an effort to

develop tools for libraries and archives to

preserve and maintain access to digital

content.

GPO and OCLC have been working

together for nearly five years on the complex

question of persistent access to digital publica-tions,

beginning with a pilot project that involved

the National Library of Education, OCLC and

approximately 600 libraries in the Federal

Depository Library Program ( FDLP), which GPO

administers. Based on the information gathered

in that project, GPO staff told OCLC,“ Build us an

archive and the tools to use it.”

From GPO’s perspective, the provi-sion

of permanent public access to the

information produced by the federal gov-ernment,

regardless of form or format, is

a responsibility conferred on GPO by

Congress in Title 44 of the United States

Code. For 140 years the GPO has pro-vided

printed documents to libraries and

the public. Beginning in the 1960s,

Congress required permanent retention

of government documents by a subset of

libraries in the FDLP. Since the introduction of

CDs in the late 1980s and to the present, GPO has

been seeking solutions for providing distributed,

stable access to government information in digital

formats that emulate the stability of access pro-vided

by depository libraries in the print world.

GPO and the Web Document Digital Archive pilot

GPO and OCLC have

been working

together for nearly

five years on the

complex question of

persistent access to

digital publications.

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

32 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

GPO has been moving forward in the transition

to a more electronic FDLP since 1996. Because

the program of traditional hardcopy distribution

continues alongside electronic dissemination,

GPO uses a formidable array of legacy systems to

acquire, classify, track, distribute, archive and cata-log.

Currently, half a dozen or more applications,

ranging from mainframe- based databases to very

inexpensive shareware, form the technological

landscape in which librarians and paraprofession-als

at GPO work. With those systems, they

archive electronic publications for permanence,

catalog for access, track and collate for internal

verification, control, and shipment of tangible

items, and manage the resources of the FDLP

Electronic Collection for use by depository

libraries and their users nationwide.

For GPO, the Web Document Digital Archive

being developed by OCLC will accomplish several

goals:

• Develop a toolkit that will integrate and

enhance existing processes for identification,

harvest, bibliographic description, and

preservation of digital publications

• Create new and improved tools to supplement,

expand or replace existing processes

• Build an offsite digital archival facility,

organized on the principles of the Open

Archival Information System ( OAIS) model, and

which will work in tandem with other archive

solutions

The OCLC/ GPO pilot project will create a set

of integrated tools, processes and options that

will allow GPO staff to work better and smarter.

In the first phase, the OCLC CORC interface will

be augmented to manage processing and archiv-ing

workflow and allow not only creation of a

bibliographic record, but also a related preserva-tion

metadata record. In later phases, functional-ity

will be added for identification and harvest of

digital resources, as well as storage in OCLC

archival servers.

In just over a year, GPO’s fledgling archiving

activities have already preserved over 1,000 elec-tronic

publications. The OCLC/ GPO pilot project

will make significant progress toward scaling up

GPO’s capacity to preserve digital publications to

help meet the growing demands of the American

public for electronic government information.

— George Barnum is Electronic Collections

manager, U. S. Government Printing Office.

• • •

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 33

by Brian F. Lavoie

It is widely acknowledged

that the long- term preserva-tion

of digital resources is

one of the most important

issues facing the library

community.

“ Failure to look for

trusted means and methods

of digital preservation,”

warns the Task Force on Archiving of Digital

Information in its highly regarded report,“ will

certainly exact a stiff, long- term cultural penalty.”

[“ Preserving Digital Information: Report of the

Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information”

( 1996)] As custodians of the cultural and intellec-tual

resources of society, libraries must cope with

the evolution of technologies used for recording

and accessing these resources. In this regard, the

rapid proliferation of information in digital form

presents new chal-lenges

for libraries,

including the necessity

to develop strategies for

maintaining the viability

and accessibility of digi-tal

content over the

long- term.

The search for

“ trusted means and

methods of digital

preservation” has been and continues to be an

active area of research. While comprehensive

standards and best practices have yet to emerge,

ongoing work toward this end has sharpened

understanding of the needs and requirements that

must eventually be met to carry out effective digi-tal

preservation. One of these requirements is

the creation and maintenance of metadata in sup-port

of the preservation process. This article

defines preservation metadata, discusses its

importance in maintaining the long- term viability

and accessibility of digital objects, and reviews a

number of current initiatives in this area.

Metadata

Metadata for digital resources has been the focus

of a great deal of recent activity in the library

community and beyond. The Dublin Core

Metadata Initiative has yielded a set of 15

resource discovery metadata elements for elec-tronic

materials, but perhaps more importantly, a

consensus- building framework in which this and

related standards can be initiated, maintained and

evolved by engaging the participation of a diverse

community of stakeholders. The World Wide Web

Consortium’s Resource Description Framework

facilitates the interoperability of automated meta-data

processing tools for web- accessible informa-tion.

OCLC’s Cooperative Online Resource

Catalog ( CORC) service provides tools and data-bases

for the creation of metadata records for

electronic resources.

These metadata initiatives are primarily

directed toward improving the discovery and

accessibility of digital resources. Resource dis-covery,

however, constitutes only one aspect of

the metadata requirements associated with man-aging

information in digital form. The creation

and maintenance of

metadata in support

of preservation

processes— in other

words, processes imple-mented

to ensure both

the preservation of the

bit stream and the con-tinued

ability to render

or display the content

represented by the bit

stream— is an indispensable component of almost

any strategy for the long- term retention of infor-mation

in digital form.

In its broadest interpretation, preservation

metadata is simply metadata that exists and is uti-lized

in an archival setting— in other words, the

complete metadata framework implemented by

an institution in the course of conducting some

form of digital preservation function. This frame-work

would presumably extend to resource dis-covery

metadata ( such as the Dublin Core)

utilized by the archive’s finding aids, as well as

other forms of administrative and structural meta-data.

It is common, however, to define preserva-tion

metadata more narrowly, specifically as

metadata serving two functions:

• Provide preservation managers with sufficient

knowledge to take appropriate actions to

maintain a digital object’s bit stream over the

long- term

Metadata for digital preservation

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

34 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

• Ensure that the content of an archived object

can be rendered and interpreted

In this sense, preservation metadata may be

viewed as a component of administrative meta-data—

i. e., metadata supporting resource manage-ment

within a digital collection.

The National Library of Australia suggests a

number of examples of the types of information

to which preservation metadata might extend:

• Technical information supporting preservation

decisions and actions

• Preservation actions taken

• Effects of preservation strategies

• Authenticity of digital resources over time

• Information about collection management and

the management of rights

The need for preservation metadata of this

kind is largely a function of the properties and

characteristics of the digital medium itself. The

next section discusses why preservation metadata

is an essential component of most digital preser-vation

strategies.

Preservation Metadata

and Digital Objects

Preserving the content of an analog ( physical)

information resource— for example, a book or

paper document— is a relatively straightforward

and well- understood process. The content is

microfilmed and the film stored in a climate-controlled

environment. Microfilming simultane-ously

ensures the content’s physical preservation

( assuming the microfilm is stored in appropriate

environmental conditions), continued accessibil-ity

( all that is needed is light and a magnification

instrument), and even authenticity ( barring mali-cious

tampering, content recorded on microfilm

is static). Estimates suggest that properly stored,

the life expectancy of microfilm can be measured

in centuries.

Preservation of a digital resource is more prob-lematic.

In contrast to microfilm, digital storage

media deteriorates quickly, exposing the informa-tion

recorded on it to the corruptive process of

“ bit rot.” Taking steps to ensure that a digital

object continues to “ physically exist” by periodi-cally

replicating its bit stream on fresh storage

media is not, however, equivalent to ensuring that

the object’s content will remain accessible, or

even that the bit stream is immutably preserved.

A digital object is inextricably intertwined with

its software and hardware environments. These

environments evolve in a relatively continuous

cycle of innovation and obsolescence.

Consequently, access to a preserved bit stream’s

content will cease if rendering applications, oper-ating

systems or computational environments

capable of understanding and processing the bit

stream no longer exist. This problem can be

countered by strategies such as migrating the

object to new formats compatible with current

software and hardware environments. But migra-tion

operates directly on an archived object’s bit

stream, with the consequence that the migrated

object’s look, feel or even its intellectual content

could differ from what was originally placed in

the archive.

The challenges associated with the long- term

retention of digital objects underscore the need

for detailed metadata to support the preservation

process. Preservation metadata can record the

technical specifications of the archived digital

object, including resource type, file format,

encoding and storage size. Description necessary

to make the object’s content meaningful to future

users— e. g., data structures, definitions, record

formats— can also be included. Important charac-teristics

of the object’s access environment may

be recorded, such as the name, version, and con-figuration

of required rendering applications,

operating systems and hardware. If components

of the access environment have been preserved

along with the digital object itself, metadata can

supply pointers to their location, whether inter-nal

or external to the archive.

Preservation metadata can document the evo-lution

of the archived object as it is migrated to

new formats to keep pace with changing access

technologies, including any effects migration may

have had on the object’s rendered content.

Authenticity of the archived bit stream can be ver-ified

by recording a check sum or digital signa-ture,

and the provenance of the object can be

maintained by documenting the chain of custody

from the object’s origin through its deposit in the

archive. All of this information and more falls

under the purview of preservation metadata.

It is straightforward to discuss at a conceptual

level the nature and function of preservation

metadata. However, like many other aspects of

digital preservation, implementation is a more dif-ficult

proposition. Fortunately, through the

efforts of a number of digital preservation pro-jects

and initiatives, the core requirements for

implementable preservation metadata are starting

to come into focus. Several of these contribu-tions

are discussed in the next section.

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 35

Implementing Preservation Metadata

The work of a number of digital preservation ini-tiatives

offers the opportunity to observe the con-cept

and function of preservation metadata in

practice. This work can be broadly divided into

three categories: defining the scope of preserva-tion

metadata, implementing preservation meta-data

element sets, and identifying consensus and

best practice in the use of preservation metadata.

The most fundamental question concerning

preservation metadata is its scope: what types of

information are included in this class of metadata,

and how is it distinguished from ( or conversely, to

what extent does it overlap) other classes of

metadata? The Open Archival Information System

( OAIS) reference model has proven to be highly

influential in answering this question. It intro-duces

the concept of an Archival Information

Package ( AIP), which is the digital object being

preserved along with its associated metadata. An

AIP includes four separate classes of metadata,

two of which collectively embody the informa-tional

requirements of preservation metadata.

The first, Representation Information ( RI), is

metadata that facilitates rendering, understanding

and interpretation of the digital object���s content.

The second, Preservation Description Information

( PDI), is metadata necessary to manage preserva-tion

of the object, and is the aggregation of four

sub- types of information: reference ( uniquely

identifies the object), provenance ( documents the

object’s history), context ( establishes the relation-ship

of the object to other objects and its environ-ment),

and fixity ( validates the authenticity of the

object). In addition to RI and PDI, an AIP

includes two other forms of metadata: Packaging

Information, which binds the digital object and its

associated metadata into an identifiable package

or unit, and Descriptive Information, which

serves as resource discovery metadata in support

of the archive’s finding aids. Taken in total, the

OAIS provides a high- level model useful not only

for sketching out the general metadata require-ments

for an archival setting, but also for staking

out boundaries delineating the scope of preserva-tion

metadata.

The OAIS reference model has informed a

number of digital preservation initiatives requir-ing

implementation of preservation metadata.

For example, the CEDARS project, based in the

United Kingdom, has developed an implementa-tion

of the OAIS metadata framework for use

with its digital preservation demonstrator archive.

The CEDARS element set explicitly adopts the

concepts, structure and terminology of the OAIS

model, and may be viewed as a complete imple-mentation

of an OAIS- type AIP. Another

implementation, by the Networked European

Deposit Library ( NEDLIB), is similar to CEDARS

in that it also adopts the structure and terminol-ogy

of the OAIS; however, the NEDLIB element

set is limited compared to CEDARS— rather than

developing a complete AIP implementation, it

seeks to identify the “ core” metadata elements

essential for preservation management. The

National Library of Australia has adopted a slightly

different approach from that pursued by CEDARS

and NEDLIB: rather than enumerate a list of

“ ready to populate” metadata elements, the NLA

produced a data output model, characterizing the

information that is needed out of a metadata sys-tem,

regardless of how the specific metadata ele-ments

are implemented or recorded. Although

the NLA approach does not explicitly follow the

OAIS structure, a mapping between the two is

fairly intuitive.

Though they were developed to meet the

needs and requirements of particular institutions

or projects, these preservation metadata imple-mentations

share many characteristics. In the

spirit of a recent commitment to collaborate on

identifying and supporting best practices for digi-tal

preservation, OCLC and RLG initiated a work-ing

group to facilitate consensus- building activity

in the area of preservation metadata for digital

resources. Drawing on the expertise and experi-ence

of leading figures in digital preservation,

including representatives from the projects dis-cussed

here and from a variety of geographical

and institutional backgrounds, the working group

is engaged in developing an implementation of

the OAIS approach based on a synthesis of exist-ing

implementations ( e. g., CEDARS, NLA and

NEDLIB) supplemented by the recommendations

of the working group membership. The working

group expects to report its results by the end of

the year. A white paper summarizing the “ state of

the art” in preservation metadata, written to pro-vide

context for the working group’s activities, is

currently available at the working group web site.

Conclusion

The emergence of well- understood processes and

procedures for carrying out digital preservation

will almost certainly include the development of

standards and best practices guiding the use of

metadata in support of the preservation process.

As digital preservation research continues to

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

36 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

evolve into trusted digital preservation services—

such as those that will soon be available through

OCLC’s Digital Content Management &

Preservation Division��� the scope, structure, and

function of preservation metadata will continue

to be refined and sharpened. But it is clear even

now that the creation and maintenance of preser-vation

metadata will occupy a central role in

effecting the long- term retention of digital

resources.— Brian F. Lavoie is associate research

scientist, OCLC Office of Research.

• • •

References/ Resources

CEDARS Project ( 2000) “ Draft Specification: CEDARS Preservation Metadata Elements”

< http:// www. leeds. ac. uk/ cedars/ MD- STR~ 5. pdf>

Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems ( 1999)

Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System ( OAIS) Red Book Issue1

< http:// www. ccsds. org/ documents/ pdf/ CCSDS- 650.0- R- 1. pdf>

CORC Web Site < http:// www. oclc. org/ corc/>

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Web Site < http:// purl. org/ dc/>

National Library of Australia ( 1999) “ Preservation Metadata for Digital Collections: Exposure Draft”

< http:// www. nla. gov. au/ preserve/ pmeta. html>

Networked European Deposit Library ( 2000) “ Metadata for Long Term Preservation”

< http:// www. kb. nl/ coop/ nedlib/ results/ preservationmetadata. pdf>

OCLC/ RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata ( 2001) “ Preservation Metadata for Digital Objects:

A Review of the State of the Art”

< http:// www. oclc. org/ digitalpreservation/ presmeta_ wp. pdf>

OCLC/ RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata Web Site

< http:// www. oclc. org/ digitalpreservation/ wgmetadata. htm>

RDF Web Site < http:// www. w3. org/ RDF/>

Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information ( 1996) “ Preserving Digital Information:

Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information”

( commissioned by the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group)

< http:// www. rlg. org/ ArchTF/ tfadi. index. htm>

• • •

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001 37

by Neil Beagrie

This article reports on the

establishment of the Digital

Preservation Coalition,

which aims to develop a

United Kingdom digital

preservation agenda

within an international

context. The coalition is

being established by a

range of leading United Kingdom and interna-tional

organizations, including OCLC, to foster

joint action to address the urgent challenges of

improving long- term management of and pre-serving

access to digital resources. The proposed

work of the coalition and the national and

international benefits arising from this are

outlined.

Electronic resources form an increasingly large

part of our cultural and intellectual heritage. In

addition to electronic publications, the web and

e- commerce, there is an array of new initiatives

and legislation, which is putting an onus on pub-lic

organizations to provide access to, manage and

archive their information in electronic form. In

the research arena, there are also significant devel-opments,

particularly in the sciences, toward very

large primary research data sets in electronic

form, e. g., in genomics or earth sciences.

There are significant challenges associated

with ensuring access and preservation of these

materials into the future. Electronic resources,

regardless of whether they are created initially

through digitization or are “ born” digital, are

threatened by technological obsolescence and

physical deterioration. With content from inter-national

publishers, increasing globalization and

sharing of resources, and the involvement of a

range of libraries, archives, services and cultural

heritage organizations, our ability to preserve

access to these electronic resources into the

future depends on the collaboration and engage-ment

of a wide range of stakeholders.

National institutions and services, and individ-ual

local institutions increasingly need to raise

awareness of digital preservation, and develop

capacity, skills and expertise to administer or

manage for the long- term intellectual and

cultural assets they have developed in digital

form. These institutions have recognized the

value of collaboration in addressing digital preser-vation.

Establishment of a Digital Preservation

Coalition in the United Kingdom was the princi-pal

recommendation of the Warwick II Digital

Preservation Workshop held in March 1999,

which had representation from a wide range of

sectors, institutions and practitioners in digital

preservation < http:// www. leeds. ac. uk/ cedars/

OTHER/ warwick2. htm>.

There are a number of reasons why organiza-tions

at Warwick wished to establish a coalition.

First, attendees recognized they needed a collabo-rative

effort to get digital preservation on the

agenda of key decision- makers and funders in

terms that they will understand and find persua-sive.

Second, digital projects and initiatives are

proliferating, and the institutions themselves felt

there would be significant value in developing the

umbrella organization to help coordinate and

keep a watching brief and monitoring role on

their behalf. Third, despite sectoral differences it

was felt that most of the technical and some orga-nizational

issues remain the same for all organiza-tions.

There are therefore significant synergies

and mutual self- interest in collaboration. At the

same time the efforts of individual institutions

and sectors can be leveraged and coordinated

through collaboration to achieve wider national

and international benefits. Finally, it was felt that

although many of the challenges are international

in scope, building a cross- sectoral collaboration

on this scale is in itself challenging, and the coali-tion

should therefore have a UK focus. However,

the coalition would aim both through its program

and international members and alliances to work

Digital Preservation Coalition to develop international

context to preserving digital resources

D I G I T A L A N D P R E S E R V A T I O N R E S O U R C E S

38 OCLC Newsletter September/ October 2001

within a broader international context. The par-ticipation

of OCLC in the coalition is particularly

helpful to this aim.

Concrete action toward the establishment of

the coalition is now in progress. In June 2000 the

Joint Information Systems Committee ( JISC)

established JISC Digital Preservation Focus to

help establish and support the coalition proposed

at Warwick. A draft outline of the coalition and

its remit and work was discussed at a digital

preservation summit held in London Jan. 16,

2001. Papers from the summit are now available

online at < http:// www. jisc. ac. uk/ dner/

preservation/ dpcintro. htm>.

The Digital Preservation Coalition

Membership

The coalition is being established as an associa-tion

by a core strategic group of partners/ mem-bers

and during its first year will expand its

membership, evolve as an organization, and

develop proposals for its constitution, programs

and funding.

Executive and administrative support to estab-lish

the coalition is being provided by the JISC

through the JISC Digital Preservation Focus and

represents a significant additional sponsorship of

the coalition.

There are three classes of participation in the

Coalition: full members, associate members, and

allied organizations or individuals. Organizations

can also sponsor coalition activities or projects

and events to be undertaken by the coalition.

• Full members are eligible to have a

representative on the board of the coalition,

and their staff and officers participate in all

coalition activities.

• Associate members have a representative on

the Advisory Council of the coalition and their

staff and officers participate in all coalition

activities.

• Allied organizations collaborate with the

coalition on specific activities and goals and

participate by invitation in selected activities.

They can include commercial organizations

that work with the coalition to promote a

dialogue with industry on digital preservation

issues and developing solutions and standards.

• Allied individuals are individuals with specific

expertise and experience invited by the

coalition to contribute to the Advisory Council

and/ or other selected activities.

�� Organizations can also sponsor the coalition or

projects and events to be undertaken by the