A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 2

BCR Services Help Lower Costs

By Rosario Garza

BCR provides a number of ways for libraries to reduce costs and lowering OCLC's searching charges is just one of them. BCR also offers a variety of other services that libraries can use to help bring their costs down.

BCR has many workshops and training options to help your staff keep their skills honed. Staff training becomes even more important when you are asking them to take on new challenges. For example, to ensure that your copy catalogers searching for OCLC bibliographic records are aware of the most efficient ways to search WorldCat, BCR trainers offer OCLC searching workshops designed to cover different searching options and can help identify which ones work best in various situations. Perhaps an on-site, custom-tailored workshop is the best option for your library. We'll work with you to ensure that your particular needs are addressed and that your staff's questions are answered.

BCR also has a variety of online training options available. Our distance learning workshops allow library staff to learn at their desks. Other online options include no- charge tutorials available to help new staff get started. BCR's professional trainers are just a phone call away and will be happy to answer your questions if you decide to use the online training option.

BCR staff can review your OCLC connectivity costs and recommend possible ways to reduce those charges. OCLC makes a variety of telecommunications reports available to users, and our experienced staff can review those reports to ensure that you are not paying for extra telecom capacity that is going to waste.

BCR's professional librarians can review both your cataloging and interlibrary loan workflow to help you best use the services that BCR offers.

BCR hosts workshops to help you get the most out of online reference databases and works with various reference database vendors to schedule training that will keep your skills up-to-date.

If your library doesn't have the funds to send your staff off for a day of training, many reference database vendors now offer "webinars" free, web-based seminars that are one or two hours in length, designed to make library staff aware of the latest changes and enhancements to their products. Your only cost is staff time.

We look forward to working with our member libraries to ensure that all are getting the most cost-effective services possible.

For additional information, contact Rosario Garza (rgarza@bcr.org) or Regan Harper (rharper@bcr.org) at BCR.

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