OCLC and Gale expand partnership

Jan. 23, 2013 - PRLog -- OCLC and Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, have agreed to make all Gale databases and archives fully discoverable through WorldCat Local, and to explore broadening discoverability of Gale collections through other applications available through the OCLC WorldShare Platform.

OCLC and Gale have been offering access to some of Gale’s most popular databases to mutual subscribers through the WorldCat Local discovery and delivery service. This new agreement will enable OCLC to index metadata and full text for all Gale databases and scholarly archives and make them discoverable through WorldCat Local for mutual subscribers.

In addition, Gale and OCLC will identify metadata that could be made discoverable to any user through OCLC WorldShare Platform applications, making it possible for libraries to better manage these resources—from selection and acquisition, to circulation and access.

“Discoverability of our products is critical to serving the needs of our end users. We’re excited to work with OCLC and expand access to our content for users around the world,” said Frank Menchaca, Executive Vice President, Research Solutions, Cengage Learning.

“This expanded partnership builds on the success of our previous work with Gale to provide access through WorldCat Local to some of Gale’s most popular databases,” said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. “This new agreement is a significant step forward in our effort to make the full range of library resources accessible through the WorldShare Platform. We are very pleased to be able to continue our work with Gale to provide access to the content our member libraries—and library users—want most.”

Gale will work with OCLC to register all its collections, including the Gale Virtual Reference Library platform and the Gale In Context collections, within the OCLC WorldShare Platform. Gale and OCLC will index for discovery all full text associated with e-books and periodicals in the collections. Gale will provide OCLC with updated Gale Knowledge Base profiles and library holdings information for all collections, making them fully discoverable and easily accessible to mutual subscribers.

Gale and OCLC will also identify metadata from these collections that can be made discoverable to users around the world through WorldCat.org, the OCLC website that offers access to the global catalog for discovery of library materials.

The OCLC WorldShare Platform is a global, interconnected Web architecture that supports OCLC services and applications, and provides flexible, open access to library data through APIs and other Web services. Libraries, developers and partners can use this data to build and share applications that streamline and enhance their local library workflows. Adding metadata from Gale databases and archives to the WorldCat knowledge base, for example, enhances the ability of library staff to select, acquire and manage their Gale content, using both OCLC applications and other applications in their workflow.