[Stephen Klein]

OCLC’s plan to consolidate FirstSearch, WorldCat local and Open WorldCat as explained starting at 5:50 in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WLMGJ4eMefw

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

Thanks so much for sharing that. Sounds like there won’t be an announcement about the release date until mid-September. Is anyone in CUNY thinking of signing up to beta test the new interface? Details here:

http://registration.oclc.org/reg/?pc=firstsearchbeta

One thing that I don’t get is what all this means for WorldCat Local and WorldCat.org. Will they get overhauled with the exact same interface? Something different?

For the benefit of others, here’s a link to the part of the video where they really get started talking about the interface (that 5:50 mark that Stephen Klein mentioned):

http://youtu.be/WLMGJ4eMefw?t=5m50s

This section of the video nicely sums up the features and benefits of the new interface:

http://youtu.be/WLMGJ4eMefw?t=11m53s

Until I watched this video, I had been thinking that we’d swap out our link to FirstSearch WorldCat on our databases page and replace it with a link to the free version at WorldCat.org, something that our users might have actually stumbled onto on their own and something that has a much cleaner interface than the FirstSearch one. But now, with this new interface coming for FirstSearch, I’m wondering if we should wait to see how it works for us before deciding to swap the link to WorldCat.org. Any thoughts about this?

[Stephen Klein]

I am going to assume a much longer wait. For several years OCLC has warned me that this change was less than 6 months away.

@SF we supply links to both.
However, because up till now we have had such issues of linking via the 035, we are not emphasizing WorldCat Local: http://gclibrary.worldcat.org/ But I assume that we might re-address soon.

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

I just signed Baruch up to be beta testers for the new FirstSearch interface. After we get set up, I’ll share what we will have learned about it.

[Stephen Klein]

A exact end-of-life date for Firstsearch has not yet been announced. Please see the timeline at:
http://www.oclc.org/go/en/firstsearch-migration/timeline.html

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

Our beta interface for FirstSearch is now set up. I’ve already sent some feedback to OCLC and expect to send more. It took just an hour from the time I requested the beta be set up for Baruch and the time it was ready for use.

Feel free to check out our instance: http://baruchcollege.beta.worldcat.org/discovery

[Robin Camille Davis]

Thanks for this info, Stephens. The beta FirstSearch is very nice (and responsive!) though oversimple and a little buggy. I signed John Jay up for beta too—could be a good thing to talk about at the next Em Tech event.

[Stephen Francoeur (he/him)]

On our library’s reference blog, I added a post about it and have asked colleagues here to append comments, which we’ve gotten a few of. http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/newmanreference/2013/08/28/testing-a-new-interface-for-worldcat/

[Stephen Klein]

biggest bug currently is SFX. It works in Open WorldCat, but not in beta interface.

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