Report of the WorldCat Local Special Collections and Archives Task Force

Since we are testing WorldCat Local, I would bring to your attention a recent report by the WorldCat Local Special Collections Task Force which was convened by OCLC “to make recommendations to improve discovery of special collections and archival materials in local implementations of WCL.” This report codifies a statement that I believe and that is becoming truer every day – “The rare books, manuscripts, archives, and other special collections materials in research libraries have become widely recognized as the hallmarks of distinction of individual academic libraries, as their general collections become increasingly homogenized through the acquisition of licenses content and digitized books.” The report goes on then to recommend ways that the discovery of special collections materials can be enhanced in WCL. There is also a response from OCLC to the recommendations of its task force. The report can be found here http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/committee-docs/FinalReportWCLSpecCollTaskForce.pdf and OCLC’s response here http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/committee-docs/OCLCResponseWCLTaskForce.pdf