On Nov 15, 2004, OCLC and Yahoo! officially launched a toolbar that provides "one-click access to Open WorldCat as well as Yahoo! Search's Web search engine." Here's the press release.
As I understand it:
1) OCLC basically made library catalogue records (US public libraries) searchable by a web search engine. When a user searches on the web, the catalogue record is displayed like how a website search result is displayed. At first glance, you'd think it's a URL link to a website.
2) When user clicks on that result link, it brings user to narrow the search to a particular library. The key thing is that the user sees a typical web search engine page, rather than the typical OPAC search page with lots of options and boxes. Users don't necessarily know they are now searching a library OPAC record.
3) The search then brings them to a library record, showing the book cover, synopsis, loan status and library location (depending on the library system I think).
When I last heard the OCLC president, Jay Jordan, talk about this in May '04, he said they were negotiating with a "search engine company" to market this service. I guess that was Yahoo. I have not tried this new toolbar. Last time I tried the "beta" was in May '04, but I think it works the same.
I see this as another step closer in making libraries relevant in the Internet era. Who said libraries won't be relevant anymore? I like this excerpt from this Information Today Inc. article:
"The co-branded toolbar ... ...empowers users ... to seamlessly search for information that is available in offline databases." A Yahoo! representative clarified that they consider "stacks of books" as "offline databases."
The toolbar is available for download at http://www.oclc.org/toolbar/default.htm
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Thanks for the clarification! Now I wonder if there's data on how many web users really go visit a library bec. of the search result from the toolbar...
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