University of Skövde library picks WorldCat Local

The University of Skövde’s library has selected WorldCat Local as its new discovery service. This is the first university library in Sweden to use OCLC’s integrated solution for discovery of electronic, digital and print materials. The library plans to complete the first implementation phase of WorldCat Local at the start of the academic year in September.

The University of Skövde’s library was said to have been looking for a cost-effective solution with an extensive central index and comprehensive coverage of its holdings to provide students with fast and easy access to the library’s electronic materials. The library has more than 15,000 e-journal titles and more than 70,000 e-books.

After the university’s records are loaded into WorldCat later in the year, print and digital materials will also be available for discovery in one single search and result set together with electronic publications. In addition to the discovery service, the WorldCat Local solution also provides a knowledge base and link resolver.

‘We wanted a cost-effective and content-neutral solution, and because OCLC has already made over 950 million items available through WorldCat Local and is constantly adding more content, this was a strong point,’ said library director Ulf-Göran Nilsson.

The University library of Skövde is planning to translate the interface into Swedish, which will make the Swedish WorldCat Local interface available to other Swedish institutions and users that are part of the OCLC worldwide cooperative.