April 16, 2007
Speaker Series Debuts for OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis
OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis (WCA) group had introduced a new Speaker Series. The first installment will be on Tuesday, May 1, from 2-3 p.m. EDT. Throughout the year, OCLC will offer webinars that feature current WCA users who will share real-life examples of ways they are using WCA to accomplish library goals.
Paul Metz, director of Collection Management at Virginia Tech University Libraries, will lead off this series by discussing his use of WCA to study and improve his libraries’ collections from both macro and micro perspectives. By comparing Tech’s holdings to the holdings of fellow Southeastern Research libraries, whose data were available in the ASERL group subscription, Metz has been able to determine whether Tech's collections differed from peers in desirable or undesirable ways in terms of subject, age and language. Though overall the analysis results were encouraging, he will discuss some specific kinds of collection deficiencies that can be detected using the tool. He will then show how Tech used the same data to identify widely held recent books that were good candidates for purchase.
A question-and-answer session will be held following the session.
Register at www3.oclc.org/app/request/bin/request.asp?specialCode=WCA-May1 or by visiting the WCA home page at www.oclc.org/collectionanalysis/.
