November/December 2005  vol.11  no.6 issn 1082-4383  

Highlights in this Issue

NEBASE Annual Meeting - West 2005
On October 13 forty-four western Nebraska librarians gathered for the NEBASE Annual Meeting - West.

Does Your Library Need NebraskAccess Brochures?
Network Services is now able to accommodate large quantity orders for the NebraskAccess tri-fold brochures.

Fall Database Trials
Network Services would like to hear from libraries interested in any of the products we have featured on trial this fall.

Get Search Results Sent to Your Email Automatically
H. W. Wilson's recently released new service allows users to have the system automatically rerun their search at set intervals and have the results emailed to them.

You Want to do What?!?
A new monthly column that will feature tips and hints for using OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing and OCLC Connexion.

Table of Contents

Past issues of N³

NEBASE ANNUAL MEETING - WEST 2005

On October 13 forty-four western Nebraska librarians gathered for the NEBASE Annual Meeting - West. This is the first year the western meeting has been held in the fall and the turnout of area librarians seems to show the change in date was a positive improvement to the schedule. Not only did the meeting generate one of the largest turnouts ever for a NEBASE - West meeting, but it was also held in the newly opened Harms Technology Center across the street from Western Nebraska Community College. The new center provided all the latest technology for the meeting attendees and presenters, including a 62 station computer lab.

The morning keynote speaker was Floyd Smith III, Executive Director of the West Nebraska Family Research & History Center. Floyd spoke of the founding of the Center and also provided tips for attendees on assisting their own patrons and community in genealogy research. Afterwards everyone participated in a hands-on training session for HeritageQuest Online database.

The afternoon sessions provided information on NetLibrary eAudioBooks, OCLC Usage Statistics, the NebraskAccess Toolbox and Nebraska Memories.

The Network Services staff is looking forward to next year's trip out west and we hope to see everyone there again.

Shannon W. Behrhorst
Network Services Director
Nebraska Library Commission
 

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OCLC RESEARCHERS ON GOOGLE'S DIGITIZATION PROGRAM

In the September issue of D-Lib Magazine, OCLC Vice-President, Research and Chief Strategist, Lorcan Dempsey, along with OCLC researchers Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Brian Lavoie, provide a preliminary analysis of the Google Print Library Project (GPLP), Google's effort to digitize the collections of several major libraries. The article takes the collections of the "Google 5"-the libraries partnering with Google in the digitization of their collections - and looks at characteristics of their collections when treated as a single unit. The analysis takes place within the context of WorldCat, the largest "system-wide" collection of books available with 32 million records.

Among the results:

The proportion of the system-wide collection covered by GPLP, once duplicate holdings across the five institutions are removed, is about 33 percent, or 10.5 million unique books out of the 32 million in the system-wide collection.

The pattern of cross-collection overlap implies that if each collection were fully digitized, about four out of every ten books would be redigitized at least once, or in other words, the GPLP project reflects a minimum redundancy rate of about 40 percent.

Only 3 percent of the books in the 10.5 million GPLP collection are held by all five libraries.

More than 80 percent of the materials in the Google 5 collections are still in copyright.

The resource created by the GPLP may be far more culturally diverse than originally anticipated, given the fact that more than 430 languages were identified and that English language materials are slightly less than half of the books in the Google 5 combined collection.

View the entire article at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/lavoie/09lavoie.html.

[OCLC, edited]

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NEBRASKACCESS EXHIBIT IN KEARNEY

Tuesday, November 1 Network Services staff will be exhibiting at the 2020 Vision and Technology Leadership Forum at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The conference is presented by ESU 10 and ESU 11 and provides an opportunity for educators and students to learn 21st century teaching skills and applications. For more information on the conference visit http://2020.esu10.org/.

Shannon W. Behrhorst
Network Services Director
Nebraska Library Commission

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SOME SIMPLE FACTS ABOUT CONTENTDM

More than 250 libraries and consortia are using CONTENTdm to store, manage, and deliver digital collections on the Web. Some 4 million objects from 2,000 collections have been digitized using this flexible and powerful software suite.

Why are libraries choosing CONTENTdm?

• CONTENTdm can manage all formats - maps, paintings, audio, video, handwritten manuscripts, foreign language materials, three-dimensional artifacts, photographs, books.
  
  
• CONTENTdm is simple to use. Says Karen Perone, Rodman Public Library, "The software is so easy to use. It allowed us to concentrate on the content of our project instead of the technology."
  
  
• CONTENTdm is for all sizes of organizations. Libraries as small as the Rodman Public Library and as large as the University of Utah are users. Smaller organizations can share the software through regional or state collaborative use agreements. One example of this is the Long Island Library Resources Council, which uses CONTENTdm and makes it available to its members.
  
  
• CONTENTdm is adaptable. Open architecture and standards include, but are not limited to, a well-defined API that allows for custom client development; record harvest via OAI-PMH; import and export with XML, and more.
  
  
• CONTENTdm can expand access to digitized collections through WorldCat. Metadata for each object can be automatically harvested into WorldCat, providing more access points for users through Web search engines via the Open WorldCat program or through the OCLC FirstSearch service.

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