Re: Advice needed

["Paul M. Gherman" <Gherman@LIBRARY.Vanderbilt.edu>]

At a recent OCLC Members Council meeting, I suggested that OCLC lead an
effort to facilitate the movement of scholarly materials from developed
nations to needing access to scholarly materials. Each year we withdraw
many useful materials (and the pace should increase as we eliminate paper
journals as we convert to electronic only), and also pass on many gift
books when we already have a copy in our collection.

I suggested that OCLC develop a means by when we withdraw material, a flag
is created on the OCLC record indicating that this material is available
to transfer (gift) to another library. Interested libraries could then
easily locate material via the OCLC database that is available.

I am not as sure about how we might actually make the physical transfer,
but my hope is that OCLC/ALA etc might apply to the Gates Foundation for
funds to develop the OCLC record system and to underwrite the collection
and shipping of materials to nations interested in the scholarly material.
We would need to develop a method of collecting and assembling materials
for shipping rather than it being a one to one library transfer unless the
amount of material were significant.

 
Paul M. Gherman
University Librarian
611B General Library
419 21st Avenue South
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37240
Office: (615) 322-7120
Fax: (615) 343-8279
gherman@library.vanderbilt.edu