DELCAT Discovery
UD Library celebrates DELCAT Discovery cloud-based system
1:18 p.m., Oct. 20, 2014--The University of Delaware Library held the official opening of the exciting new service called DELCAT Discovery on Tuesday, Sept. 30, in the Reading Room of the Morris Library.
DELCAT Discovery is the cloud-based, library discovery service recently implemented by the University of Delaware Library. Superseding DELCAT, the online catalog, DELCAT Discovery includes information about the physical collections of the University of Delaware Library and also provides links to electronic journals, electronic books and other resources.
Campus Stories
From graduates, faculty
Doctoral hooding
DELCAT Discovery uses WorldShare Management Services (WMS) software developed by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).
Based in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is the largest library cooperative in the world, with a database encompassing more than 320 million titles in more than 72,000 libraries from over 170 countries throughout the world, including the holdings of the University of Delaware Library. Items held by the University Library appear at or near the top of the display of results for DELCAT Discovery search results.
Susan Brynteson, vice provost and May Morris University Librarian, welcomed the audience of over 100 attendees, which included UD students, faculty, staff and other members of the University community, as well as guests from across the nation.
Attendees included Skip Prichard, president and CEO of OCLC; Barbara Preece, president of the OCLC Global Council and director of the Loyola Notre Dame Library of Loyola University, in Maryland; and Sandra Yee, chair of the board of trustees of OCLC and library dean, Wayne State University Libraries.
“The occasion that brings us together is the official opening of the new University of Delaware Library cloud-based discovery system based on OCLC software called DELCAT Discovery,” Brynteson said. “The University of Delaware Library is proud to be the first member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), a highly prestigious, by-invitation-only organization of the nation’s top 100 research libraries, to implement WMS, and has garnered considerable national attention in doing so.”
Provost Domenico Grasso said the implementation of DELCAT Discovery is both innovative and bold, and something that will greatly influence the realm of research libraries across the country and around the world.
“It’s exciting that UD is a leader in this endeavor in an information age where greater information retrieval is possible by libraries than at any time in history,” Grasso said. “The resources of the UD Library put our students and faculty and the campus community at the head of the class.”
Yee described the occasion as a day to celebrate the accomplishments of University of Delaware Library and the future of all research libraries.
“This implementation by University of Delaware has paved the way for their peers around the world to realize the benefits of WMS and moving to the cloud,” Yee said. “In this type of collaboration, the leadership and innovation that we are celebrating here today, as well as the long-standing commitment to advancing libraries and librarianship as displayed by the University of Delaware leadership team.”
Prichard lauded the leadership involved in what he described as a trailblazing effort that will benefit libraries worldwide.
“We are delighted and thrilled that University of Delaware is the first Association of Research Libraries to utilize WMS,” Prichard said. “Susan Brynteson has been a champion of this project and OCLC and library cooperation that allows us to do together what can be more difficult individually. I’d also like to thank Gregg Silvis for his leadership.”
Gregg Silvis, associate university librarian for Information Technology and Digital Initiatives, was instrumental as a national leader of this new innovative system, led the migration project and gave a demonstration of the new system, noting that DELCAT Discovery provides users access to a database that represents 485 languages, 328 million bibliographic records and 2.18 billion holdings.
Silvis said, “The completion of the process represents an innumerable number of hours of effort by staff members at the University of Delaware Library and the Online Computer Library Center. The library staff members are to be commended for their concentrated work in making this system a reality for a large academic library.”
Abigail S. Donovan, associate professor in the Department of Art, said, “DELCAT Discovery is a wonderful system that through a single interface puts the world’s libraries at your fingertips. I have found it to be an incredibly helpful tool in my research.“
University of Delaware Library staff members who participated in the DELCAT Discovery implementation included Erin Daix, Susan Davi, Derek Dolby, Stephen Erickson, Maggie Ferris, Megan Gaffney, Frederick Getze, Meg Grotti, Keith Jones, Valerie Jones, Shwu Leung, Meghann Matwichuk, L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Thomas Melvin, Timothy Murray, Carol Rudisell, Deborah Ryszka and Marie Seymour-Green.
Members of the Library WMS Implementation Task Force members included M. Dina Giambi, Mark Grabowski, Nancy Nelson, Deborah Rae, Jan Siar, Justin Wing and Silvis, serving as chair.
Project members from the OCLC staff included Jon Blackburn, Tyler Ferguson, Don Hamparian, Stu Keren, John McCullough, Paul Moss, Myrtle Myers, Sarah Newell, Andrew Pace, Rob Ross, Jeff Schilling, Jody Stroh and Charlotte Sturtz.
A reception was held after the event.
Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photos by Ambre Alexander Payne