By Janelle Bitter

Faculty and staff at Raritan Valley Community College’s Evelyn S. Field Library are preparing for a significant update to OCLC’s Discovery interface. In 2021, OCLC will modernize WorldCat Discovery, a discovery layer used by libraries that subscribe to OCLC’s library services platform WorldShare Management Services (WMS). The Evelyn S. Field Library uses WMS to manage patrons and materials, and treats Discovery as a “catalog +,” allowing for searching of physical materials such as books and DVDs as well as their electronic counterparts—eBooks and streaming video.

Since last spring, OCLC has been working with their customers to recommend and evaluate updates to the new Discovery interface. These enhancements will improve user experience and ensure Discovery is in compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. RVCC Systems & Technical Services Librarian Janelle Bitter has been participating in meetings with OCLC representatives and librarians around the world to help guide decision making and voice the needs of RVCC’s diverse library patrons. Surveys and virtual meetings have focused on topics like place hold workflows, configuration of search results and item details pages, edition grouping, fulfillment and access options, search history and saved search alerts, and the My Account page. Janelle has also contributed to asynchronous discussions taking place in OCLC’s Community Center, where OCLC customers and employees can troubleshoot issues and suggest enhancements.

In addition to contributing to OCLC discussions, Janelle has kept her RVCC library colleagues informed of changes and proposals. Initially, this entailed sending lists of updates via email or the library’s Slack channel, since in-person collaboration was significantly limited due to the pandemic. Although recorded OCLC webinars were often available to illustrate updates, they did not demonstrate how the new interface would play out in a local context. Luckily, OCLC rolled out the modernized interface for library staff, allowing for viewing and testing of real-time institutional data prior to the official unveiling. While communication methods have not changed significantly since last year, the addition of a live modernized interface for library employees has allowed Evelyn S. Field faculty and staff to experience the updates firsthand. Not only can they see the changes Janelle emails them about, they can also share feedback with her or directly within the OCLC Community Center, as OCLC continues to seek recommendations for improvement.

Besides making updates that will benefit all libraries, OCLC has incorporated increased institutional decision-making into the modernized Discovery interface. One important example is the display of metadata in the item detail pages. In the prior system, libraries could only make minor changes to some field labels. Now they can now reorder all fields in addition to relabeling them. What is more, libraries can choose to suppress less relevant metadata, creating a cleaner display in which the most sought-after information is easy to find. This is true of all fields, allowing libraries to promote some while hiding others under a “show more” link. In addition, individual subject vocabularies within 6xx fields are treated the same way. For example, a library can now choose to promote Library of Congress Subject Headings and Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms above Art & Architecture Thesaurus while suppressing other vocabularies altogether. Librarians at Evelyn S. Field are eager to find the best configuration for their users. Although Janelle will make initial changes and seek feedback from her colleagues, the ability to continually make improvements to meet changing user needs will be most beneficial. Other changes directed at end users include highlighted search terms in results displays and a more intuitive My Account page.

Amidst a global pandemic, and with so many of us working isolated from our colleagues, collaborating with other OCLC WMS users across multiple time zones has helped cultivate a feeling of purpose and connectedness. In July, RVCC’s Evelyn S. Field Library will officially move to the new Discovery interface. Until then, library workers continue to assess and make recommendations to ensure the modernized Discovery platform will best meet the needs of their patrons.

Janelle Bitter is the Systems and Technical Services Librarian at Raritan Valley Community College. She can be reached at janelle.bitter@raritanval.edu.