On the 2nd May 2012, Sabinet launched a new platform for their Online Reference products.

After an extensive process of considering and evaluating other software to potentially replace the existing platform, a decision was made to develop it in-house. During the previous year, Sabinet’s Systems Development team had successfully designed and developed a new platform for the legal products and services (Sabinet Legal). Given the success of this system, it made sense to further develop this software for the Reference products.

Development started in September 2011 and user testing was carried out during February 2012. Sabinet is very grateful for the input and feedback received from the testers. The beta version of Sabinet Reference was launched on the 2nd of May 2012. Please have a look at Sabinet Reference at http://reference.sabinet.co.za .

The new interface was developed with the end-user in mind and was intended to provide more Google-like searching and far more sophisticated functionality than the current Online Reference interface provides. One search screen provides both very simple and very extensive search options – the user decides how to search.

Some of the other new features of this interface include:
• facets facilitate refining of search results
• efficient keyword searching
• relevance ranking
• related items (items from other databases/products which contain the same search terms)
• an Action List, where selected records can be saved for a session from where printing, emailing or exporting can be carried out
• mySabinet – each user’s personal space for saving searches or lists and sharing these with other mySabinet users
• mobile access from smartphones or tablets
• easy linking between Sabinet Legal and Sabinet Reference with a single login code
• ‘remember me’ feature – even from home the user will be recognised and won’t have to sign in each time

Another change is that the metadata of the SA ePublications has now been opened to all – it is no longer necessary to subscribe to the product in order to see the records for journal articles. However, a subscription will be necessary in order to view the full text of journal articles. Anyone can now search the SA ePublications database at http://www.journals.co.za .

The functionality of the SA ePublications has been extensively revamped to include features which allow you to:
• ‘search within this journal’ to limit a search to a specific journal title
• view a table of contents for the specific journal issue for a selected record/result – direct linking to journal articles from the table of contents
• view a complete list of issues for a specific journal title
• link to information about a specific journal
• faceting allows limiting results to a specific subject collection, e.g. the Law Collection; author affiliation, etc.
• create personalised RSS feeds

For the foreseeable future the old and the new Reference interface will operate side-by-side. Subscribers will be given ample warning before we discontinue access to the old platform. During this time, the new interface will continue to undergo development, with additional features being provided continually.

Sabinet also recently started implementing WorldCat Local at academic institutions. WorldCat Local is an end user discovery tool that, through a single search box, allows users access to the library’s OPAC, SACat, WorldCat and all other electronic resources to which that library subscribes.

Dear LIASA members

Best wishes for a wonderful “World Book Day” today.    Please go out and celebrate the joy of reading a good book and promote this to all as a valuable and pleasurable pastime.

Listen to RSG between 13:00 and 14:00 for some coverage on World Book Day and comments by the President on books and reading.

Regards

Naomi Haasbroek

President

Library and Information Association of South Africa

president@liasa.org.za

http://www.liasa.org.za

Twitter: www.twitter.com/LIASANews

Sabinet Gateway completed the installation of a peering link to the SANReN (http://www.sanren.ac.za/).  The link went live on 1 April 2012. SANReN (South African National Research Network) is a project to create a new National Research and Education Network in South Africa. However, unlike most other NRENs, SANReN will provide its clients with both connectivity to the world’s research networks as well as commodity Internet access.  It effectively links the South African research and higher education communities together over a very fast optical fiber backbone.  

In its simplest form the SANReN is a high-speed network dedicated to academic and research traffic. The network operated by TENET (http://www.tenet.ac.za/) includes a 10 Gbps circuit to London on the SEACOM cable system, redundant backhaul circuits from the SEACOM landing station in Mtunzini, the SANReN 10 Gbps backbone, SANReN fibre rings in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, the GEN3 MPLS network and Metro-E circuits provided by Neotel, IP Connect bandwidth into the ADSL cloud, and various optical fibre and wireless access circuits. TENET operates transit and peering links in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and Amsterdam, including a connection to the European research and education network, GÉANT. TENET also operates UbuntuNet gateways in Mtunzini, London and Amsterdam under contract to the UbuntuNet Alliance.

The Sabinet/SANReN peering link offers the South African research and higher education communities super-fast access to all the local Sabinet products. It also added redundancy to Sabinet’s network connectivity.

Sabinet Gateway would like to express its appreciation to TENET for their assistance in making available this peering link.  Institutions who connect to the SANReN and who experience network response problems are invited to contact Hennie Rautenbach (Hennie@sabinet.co.za) to investigate these.

by Hennie Rautenbach

Anne Williams joined us on the 1^st March 2012. She previously worked in the marketing departments of a few corporate companies, the last being Creditworx. 

Anne is married to Dion Williams and they are blessed with three children (a son, Kamogelo-14 yrs and two daughters, Ororiseng-3yrs & Tsedintle-1yr).

Her favourite authors are Faye Kellerman and Stephen King.  Besides reading, Anne enjoys the company of family and friends.  She also loves playing pool.  

Anne’s number one superwoman is her granny, AKA Mma.

Linet Kemp joined our Metadata department on 6 March 2012.  She was previously employed by Varsity College in Sandton and by Midrand Graduate Institute in Midrand as a law lecturer. 

She enjoys reading, sport and socializing with friends. She is at her happiest when she doesn’t have to cook.

She describes herself as being passionate and caring with a great sense of humor.

Her motto:
” The best way out is always through.”  Robert Frost.

We wish Anne and Linet all the best in their new positions.

Granny Masekoameng  joined our Digitisation department on 1 February 2012.
She was previously employed by the Jeep Store in Menlyn Park as a sales assistant.
Granny obtained her Diploma in Correctional Services Management at the Tshwane University of Technology.

She describes herself as an ambitious, humble and very dedicated person.

Her hobbies are cooking and reading.
Granny finds Sabinet very exciting and the staff amazing. 

Kagiso Ndinisa joined our Digitisation department on 24 January 2012.  He is a part time student at the University of Pretoria completing a B-Admin degree in Public Management.  He was previously employed at Queenspark Store in Brooklyn Mall as a sales assistant.  He enjoys reading books, jogging, drawing, listening to music, playing football and site seeing.

Kagiso believes that every expert in something was once a beginner.

His motto:
“Live for today and hope for tomorrow”.

We wish Granny and Kagiso all the best in their new positions.

A Discovery Health Wellness Day was held at Sabinet on 1 December 2011.  The day involved screening tests and an online questionnaire to help learn about your health.

The registration started at 09:00, each session took approximately 10 -12 min per person. The following assessments were done:

• HIV
• blood pressure
• glucose
• BMI (body mass index)
• cholesterol
• weight
• height

The wellness day was well attended by the Sabinet staff.

Dear OCLC Member,

The world that libraries serve, and operate within, is shaped by the Web. The Web makes it possible to now apply the dimensions of geography and scope to almost every decision we make. We can tap into tools and resources, and serve communities that are global, national, regional, local and personal. Barriers have been lifted on how we can communicate, conduct research, share information and deliver services.

The Web offers unprecedented opportunities for us to work together toward our vision of the world’s libraries, connected. I am writing today to preview our plans to advance this vision, and together leverage the full power of the Web.

Cooperating at Webscale

In November, OCLC Global Council delegates representing 17 countries convened in Dublin, Ohio, to provide strategic advice and guidance to OCLC. Delegates outlined opportunities and challenges that are redefining libraries. Delegates explored how library users will be best served in this connected world and advised OCLC on the most important roles the Cooperative should pursue in this new environment. It was a robust and lively conversation.

Delegates discussed expanded, radical forms of collaboration. They described new methods of cooperation and different types of partnerships supported by cloud-based technologies, innovative Web services and increased engagement with library users and scholars. Delegates recognized the unique opportunities that libraries now have to collaborate and deliver services together.

We can already see many examples of libraries working together to envision new services and new approaches to services that leverage the power of the Web. Nonprofit organizations and cross-organizational initiatives such as HathiTrust, DuraSpace, JSTOR, Europeana and the emerging efforts of the Digital Public Library of America, to name just a few, have been created by librarians, museums, universities, consortia and policy and civic groups to pioneer new approaches to service and education. We are already seeing the advantages of increased visibility of collections and cost saving through shared operations—what we call “operating and innovating at Webscale.” But we need to do more.

Global Council delegates and the Board of Trustees encourage OCLC to extend the scope and number of partnerships with these and other initiatives. And they urge us to accelerate our efforts to provide the global services and platforms needed to help realize the potential for libraries to cooperate at Webscale.

OCLC members created the foundation to support this vision, and our work has been under way for more than a decade. In 2000, we published the strategy document “Weaving the Web into libraries and weaving libraries into the Web,” helping provide focus for our work on the Web. In 2005, we leveraged the combined influence of thousands of member libraries to build strategic partnerships with Google, Yahoo! and other search engines to ensure that libraries’ collections were made visible on the Web through the Open WorldCat initiative. In 2006, this Web connection was expanded to include a new library “hub,” WorldCat.org, adding another option for information seekers to access library services and collections. In 2007, we launched WorldCat Local to provide library users with both a global view of the collective library collections, as well as a local view of the library materials held by their primary institution—allowing users to scale their search using the power of the Web to create the information service that best matched their needs.

Since 2009, OCLC members, staff and advisory group participants have been working together to develop Webscale Management Services to create a new paradigm for how library management services can be delivered using the advantages of the Web, collaboration and cloud-based infrastructure. Thanks to the flexibility that the Web architecture and community engagement provides, early adopters and advisory committee members have been engaged with OCLC staff to guide and inform the development and create continuous innovations to these services.

Our Next Steps – OCLC WorldShare

Today we are launching the OCLC WorldShare Platform, a shared technical infrastructure that will support a growing number of OCLC services and applications. This platform will enable library developers, partners and other organizations to create, configure and share a wide range of applications that deliver new functionality and value for libraries and their users.

The OCLC WorldShare Platform facilitates collaboration and app-sharing across the library community so that libraries can combine library-built applications, partner-built applications and OCLC-built applications. This enables the benefits of each single solution to be shared broadly throughout the library community.

In the coming weeks, participants from platform pilot libraries will work with members of the OCLC Developer Network to help create and build new applications to populate the new OCLC WorldShare App Gallery, where users will be able to see available apps and install them into current work environments. Developers can showcase their creativity, partners can create add-on functionality and library staff can find practical, everyday solutions to streamline and enhance their workflows.

The first services built on this new technical infrastructure are Webscale Management Services, which have been rebranded as OCLC WorldShare Management Services, and include circulation, acquisitions and license management applications. Today, more than 30 libraries are already using OCLC WorldShare Management Services, and more than 150 libraries worldwide have committed to the new service since September 2010.

Over time, we will bring together additional OCLC services and applications under the OCLC WorldShare name, including resource sharing, consortial borrowing, metadata management and other applications. OCLC’s currently deployed library management solutions will continue to be maintained and enhanced in line with our libraries’ ongoing requirements under their current brand names.

WorldCat will continue to serve as the name for shared data, including registries and the knowledge base, as well as discovery services such as WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local.

Finally, we are taking the first steps in a migration to cloud computing for service delivery. OCLC currently operates data centers located in the United States. The first data center outside the United States will be available in the United Kingdom this week. Additional data centers will be deployed in continental Europe, Australia and Canada in the coming year. Data centers around the world will support performance, reliability and scalability in our increasingly global Cooperative.

Upcoming Discussions

This next step in our strategy to advance the OCLC vision and mission, like all the work of the Cooperative, is yours to evaluate, advance and improve. Please take some time to review our full discussion document, Libraries at Webscale, and visit our website for more details about OCLC WorldShare. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback at the upcoming Americas Regional Council meeting on January 20, and at the EMEA Regional Council meeting February 28–29. If you are unable to attend a regional council meeting in person, we hope you’ll attend one of our upcoming webinars, where we’ll discuss our emerging plans with members, collecting and incorporating feedback into our new services. We’ll keep you informed of the dates and times of these events as they approach.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me personally with your questions or comments. We look forward to working together with our members and all libraries as we begin a new era of library cooperation—at Webscale.

Sincerely,

Jay Jordan
OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer