Survey Results

Who are you?

Bob Bolander ()

Ralph LeVan (research scientist / program officer)

(research scientist / program officer)

Günter Waibel (research scientist / program officer)

(research scientist / program officer)

(developer / other staff)

Karen Disbrow (developer / other staff)

Brian Lavoie (research scientist / program officer)

LSC (research scientist / program officer)

Ricky (research scientist / program officer)

Jackie (research scientist / program officer)

KSS (research scientist / program officer)

JG (research scientist / program officer)

(research scientist / program officer)

Roy Tennant (research scientist / program officer)

(developer / other staff)

eric childress (developer / other staff)

CS (developer / other staff)

JSB (developer / other staff)

Patrick (developer / other staff)

DM (research scientist / program officer)

Jim (research scientist / program officer)

Merrilee (research scientist / program officer)

Melissa Renspie (developer / other staff)

What is the mission of OCLC?

To increase access to the world's information, and reduce the rate of rise of library costs.

To make help libraries do their business, which is finding information.

Helping libraries to operate more efficiently as a system.

Got bubbles? To support libraries of all stripes do more with less.

To raise the awareness of library assets on the web, and to provide support to libraries to reduce redundancy in library processing, thereby saving resources.

Support Libraries and help them help the world gain access to information and items that libraries have.

to further access to the world's information and reduce the costs of accessing that information.

To help connect the world's libraries.

To provide products and services that help libraries effectively and economically manage, describe, provide access to, and preserve library materials.

Connecting people through library cooperation.

Finding community-based ways to help libraries [and archives and museums] to provide better service.

Provide excellent online services to libraries around the planet at the most reasonable cost possible.

Connecting the world's libraries to the people they serve through cooperation.

Connect the world's libraries. Put a dent in their escalating costs. Keep them relevant in the Internet age.

... to develop and provide the best collaborative solutions for the community of libraries, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. Secondarily, we should be making access to the collections of these institutions better available to the world.

To make our member institutions (libraries, archives, and museums) more efficient and effective.

Provide cost effective access to information

official: To reduce the rate of rise of library costs and further access to the world's information my interpretation: Provide a sustainable nexus for collective action by the LAM communities to miminize costs and maximize social value. (In practice this has meant the building, care and feeding of collective infrastructure and assets.)

I believe the mission of OCLC is to foster cooperation between libraries from around the world in order to better serve library users. As our motto or slogan or whatever you want to call it, our mission is to "connect" libraries both in the United States and in Europe, Asia, etc., etc. "Connect" can either mean through the online environment or face-to-face, by fostering a familial sort of community consisting of library patrions, librarians, and everyone else working in the library and information science field. We're all about improving access to information.

To expose libraries to the public.

To support Museums, Libraries and Archives in their provision of essential services through shared cost reduction via web scale development of tools to support these services.

Connecting the world's libraries with bubbles. Making their processes more efficient and cost effective.

Reduce the rate of rise of library costs, increase access to the collections of libraries (archives and museums...)

To help libraries fulfill their own missions.

OCLC's mission is to further access to the world's information, re: make it easier, more efficient and less expensive for libraries to make information available to their users.

What is the mission of OCLC Research?

My personal take on it is to stay abreast of emerging technologies and determine how they might be creatively exploited on behalf of libraries. This clearly is specific to the traditional Research unit, as opposed to the current, combined group. It's also library-centric. I'd say the mission of the programs group is similar, but with people, organizations, and work processes in one hand and technology in the other... so it's something like staying on top of emerging technologies and professional issues, along with a keen grasp and personal relationships with who's who in the field, in order to structure opportunities for collaborative identification of collective issues, opportunities, best practices, and technological supports, in order to advance the goals of libraries, archives, and museums. That's unwieldy, but I'm working quickly here. The mission of the combined unit is some mashup of the two, say, joing people and technology on behalf of libraries, archives, and museums.

To investigate techniques and develop standards to support the corporate mission.

Supporting the library community and the OCLC enterprise in making strategic choices about where to invest resources (effort, money) -- and where to stop investing.

To support research institutions (libraries, archives, museums) in collectively envisioning their future, and taking the necessary steps to get there. At best, OCLC Research is a catalyst for Partner institutions. Together with our partners, we think through the issue, we create new policy and best practice, and we prototype new applications. We are their brain when they need one, we strengthen their resolve in making difficult decisions, and we demonstrate the need for and value of new technologies. We are the change they can believe in.

To anticipate technical evolution that has an impact on libraries, and prototype services and systems that lead the community in responding to those changes 2. To provide community leadership in the development and promulgation of standards that advance the interests of libraries 3. to communicate and advance the interests of librarianship in the broader technical community, and to communicate developments in that community to libraries.

I honestly have no idea. Didn't know we had one...

to provide innovative resources to help OCLC achieve its mission.

To help OCLC help connect the world's libraries.

To conduct research that supports the OCLC mission expressed above, and in particular, to do so in light of emerging trends and technologies. This research will have both an internal (OCLC) and external (community) audience.

To work with the community to address challenges and explore possible alternatives. I see OCLC Research as the research group for libraries, museums, archives, and other information-related communities.

To provide forward-thinking analyses and experimental implementations of possible new directions for LAMs.

Undertake projects, both scientific and community based, to explore cutting-edge ideas and actively communicate meaningful outcomes in order to 1) contribute to OCLC's goal of providing best and most affordable service to members, and 2) enable libraries globally to innovate, collaborate, and generally be as successful as possible in achieving their own goals.

To explore and innovate potential new mechanisms or develop new ideas that will benefit libraries, archives, and museums and build/strengthen communities.

The mission of OCLC Research is to advance the state of technology for institutions in the library and cultural heritage communities by contributing to the development of international standards, developing research prototypes, doing advance development that is too risky for OCLC's product groups to undertake, creating data resources that support interoperability, and conducting formal user studies that assess the outcomes of this work.

We should be at the head of information science research, making contributions to the field, as well as making recommendations to the company as it seeks to accomplish its mission.

To enrich the ability of OCLC to fulfill its mission through the innovative application of techniques and technologies.

research supporting providing access to information

OCLC Research: Produce knowledge to advance OCLC's mission. RLG Partnership: Provide a sustainable nexus for collective action by the research LAM communities to miminize costs and maximize social value.

The mission of OCLC research is to engage in innovative research and development that can both advance the mission of OCLC as well as the library and information science "world" in general.

To explore better ways to use the data in WorldCat to serve the public

To be a troubleshooting and idea generating division; working with practitioners and other researchers who are "in the field" to find solutions to challenges, and improvements to a whole range of tools and practices related to core library services and activities. To maintain well-respected world class research activities that enhance the image of the organization and cooperative.

Play with data and new technologies to find creative solution to the problems of libraries, archives and museums. Help RLG Programs partnership collaborate on designing their collective future.

demonstrate paths to enhanced and future services that can be delivered by libraries (archives and museums...) via the creation of community understanding, issue clarification, prototyping of infrastructure and services, and the maintenance of best practices

Twofold: In support of OCLC's own mission by improving products and services that will help libraries generally, and... Separately, the help the special group, the RLG Partnership, work on their own issues which may have a different characteristics than the overall membership

OCLC Research works to discover new and better (more efficient and cost-effective) ways for libraries, archives and museums to archive, catalog and provide access to information in print and digital formats.

How do RLG Partnership institutions and OCLC Research staff functionally relate to one another?

This is unclear. (Because of the expressed distinction between OR and the Partnership, I'm assuming that "OCLC Research" refers to the traditional unit & its activities, rather than to the combined division.)

The RLG Partners are the preferred target of real world cooperation.

Partners are the audience for our work and sometimes the beneficiaries of specific research projects. We talk about direct 'engagement' with partners but there is little of it in practice.

We facilitate conversations among the partnership, we think with them (and sometimes for them), we convene them, we encourage them, we chastise them, we take their input, we test applications with them, we get their feedback, we assist them in taking the big leap.

Partner institutions self select and participate in the OCLC research mission based on

explicit shared problems that can best be solved by focussed group action in which the given partner has specific competence
an institutional commitment to leadership in a given area.

There is a presumption that taking such a leadership role will enhance the reputation of the institution and/or result in long range cost savings.

No Idea

I guess I'm not sure who the RLG Partnership institutions are, so I'm couldn't say.

Ultimately, we are all helping libraries.

The Partnership represents institutions that are interested in convening around shared issues/problems. OCLC Research staff (particularly the program officers) facilitate, support, and direct these discussions.

We work together to test problems, develop prototypes, and publish papers and reports that will benefit libraries, museums, archives, and other information-related communities.

The RLG Partnership informs and provides feedback on activities undertaken by OCLC Research

By calling on each others' expertise as appropriate to the betterment of projects, whether planned or underway.
By actively collaborating on projects when complementary skills and expertise suggest that this will be valuable.
By actively providing feedback on work in progress.

RLG partners provide input and advice to the activities OCLC research staff do - and are readily available to test and evaluate prototypes. They could provide the initial "needs assessment" for activities not yet underway, but I don't think we have used them to full advantage that way yet.

How we do: Research people focus on technology; Programs staff penetrate deeply into constituent communities and come back with reports on trends and requirements for new projects. How we could: We could formally work together on teams that undertake ambitious, game-changing projects, such as RIM.

Functionally, perhaps not as well as they should (taking all OCLC Research Staff into consideration). The Partnership institutions should be able to advise OCLC Research of goals and research questions important to them, and should be available in turn to assist staff in research towards these goals and questions.

OCLC Research staff engage staff at RLG Partner institutions to seek out solutions to common problems.

Research works with library data and systems to access the data. RLG Partners work with library and related groups to address their needs. There is overlap when Research can support a Partner group activity, or when the RLG contacts or groups can evaluate/advise/promote, etc a Research project.

The RLG Partnership is a ferderation of self-interested agencies who make a committment to pursue collective problem-solving with OCLC Research serving as the secretariat, and OCLC Research staff assigned to help the collective identify and pursue activities. For the Program Officers this a front-and-center focus. For the scientists and their staff, the RLG Partnership is one client (albeit an important one) among many. For individual RLG Partners, mileage will vary, but effective committment and a perception of good ROI often spring as much from committments from individual staff as from their official leadership.

RLG Partnership institutions and OCLC Research staff seem to functionally relate to one another through the Research departments goal of providing new and innovative tools that will enhance the retrieval of and acccess to information and knowledge.

I am not sure. Since I am not a PAR officer, I feel I dont really have a clue what takes place "over there".

Partnership institutions represent a strong voice in the world of memory institution practices. OCLC Research staff engage in activities that the Cooperative and Partnership find informative and stimulating to better practices and workflow. Partnership institutions engage in areas of interest at a more intensive level to develop information and practice

If by relate you mean interact, I'd say via our various communications outlets -- website, blogs, newsletters, discussion lists -- plus lots of email, site visits, phone calls, and conference appearances.

They each represent a range of the capabilities necessary to deliver things of importance and impact to the multiple communities we serve

OCLC Research staff help to amplify the work going on at Partner institutions. We should be considered an extension of their own R&D unit. In some cases, we will be the R&D unit. We should help Partner institutions ask and answer the hard questions.

RLG Partnership institutions work with OCLC Research staff (particularly program officers) to develop consensus, identify problems and solutions for the major issues facing today's cultural heritage organizations. Partners are in a "pay-to-play" position of influence with OCLC Research.

Who does OCLC Research serve?

OCLC (the corporation); 2. the OCLC membership and 3. libraries in general; 4. the LIS research community; specific segments within those groups, e.g., 1a. specific OCLC products, 2a. Members Council and its 2b. Research Service Group, the 5. LAM developer community, 6. the RLG Partnership as a whole, 6a. specific segments of the RLG Partnership (these are fluid), ...

The Company 2) Libraries 3) The broader collecting community

Library managers (within and beyond the partnership) and, more rarely, junior professionals seeking to perform some professional service on a working group. Within OCLC, Research serves global product managers. Research also serves the broader LIS research community -- i.e., academic researchers in information science.

(1) librarians, (2) museum CIOs, (3) archivists, (4) OCLC product managers, (5) information seekers

OCLC Libraries Library science scholars The information community

Technical Librarians - (1)Catalogers, (2)Library IT staff and other specialized staff - with a heavy emphasis on academic librarianship. We do not work with or for everyday library workers - ie - the Front Line, nor for everyday library users.

OCLC Research serves (1) libraries (both OCLC members and non-members), (2) librarians, (3) programmers (within OCLC and within the technology community), (4) other divisions of OCLC.

Mostly academic librarians and their users.

Primarily we support decision-makers and practitioners in the library, archive, and museum communities. To a lesser extent, we also do some work that directly adddresses the interests of end-users. I would guess that most of our work finds application in a higher education (research and learning) environment.

Various information-related communities: OCLC Members RLG Partners Librarians Researchers Scholars Programmers

librarians (archivists and curators), scholars

OCLC management and staff. 2. RLG partnership member institutions. 3. OCLC member libraries (via prototyping of new services). 4. Scholarly community.

Librarians 2) Archivists 3) Programmers (primarily those working in libraries) 4) OCLC enterprise Indirectly researchers and scholars, but I think of our prime constituency as the institutions (high-education/research institutions) which serve researchers and scholars (and for universities, students.) I'm admittedly biased to the institutions represented by the RLG Partnership rather than the much broader OCLC communities...

OCLC; 2) libraries

Library and information science as a field 2. OCLC as a corporate whole 3. OCLC member institutions and RLG partners in particular 4. All libraries, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions 5. The users - and potential users - of all of the above

(1) OCLC, (2) RLG partner institutions, (3) OCLC member institutions, (4) the profession at large

Libraries 2) End Users 3) Groups supporting non-library access to information 4) OCLC

What is said: Libraries, archives, museums with a focus on 1) OCLC members, 2) RLG Partners and kindred research LAMs. In truth: A wide mix of parties (in rough order of importance). 1) OCLC -- As a Bell Labs for its product groups, its leadership, its "key" member institutions, itself (OCLC Research staff have personal areas of interests and agendas) 2) Research libraries. The RLG Partnership gives this added emphasis, but this has long been key client and audience 3) Library and information research. And the opinion-makers in the digital info sphere. Esp. for the research scientists, these are their perceived peers. 4) The OCLC membership and academic library community at large 5) Archives and museums, rare materials operations in libraries 6) Library and information science education 7) Non-LIS education and research that finds OR's work relevant and vice-versa 8) Large public libraries (primarily) and to a lesser degree other public libraries, school libraries, special libraries (e.g., medicine, law)

1.) Librarians. 2.) Users. 3.) Fellow Researchers and Scientists

Libraries

Practitioners Researchers Library Decision-makers/managers

1)I'd start with the librarians and archivists. 2) Rather indirectly, their users. 3) The corporate enterprise. 4) Programmers.

the library community generally, research institutions particularly via interactions with the OCLC membership, enterprise service groups and the RLG Partner institutions

Those who work in libraries 2. Library school faculty, etc.

Librarians (of research, public, academic libraries) 2. Developers 3. IT staff at libraries, archives and museums 4. RLG Partner institutions 5. OCLC Enterprise (internal staff) 6. Catalogers 7. Archivists 8. Scholars 9. Library, archive and museum patrons (general information seekers)

What functions does OCLC Research provide for each of the constituencies you identified above?

"thought leadership" (I hate that phrase) - 1,2,3 code - 1a,4,5,6a publications, presentations, reports - provided to all; probably used mostly by 4,5,6a

Prototypes, code, expertise 2+3) evaluation, non-product research

(1) Strategic guidance, operational blueprints for library mgt. (2) For product managers, development capacity and revenue and product-neutral assessment of value. (3) For academic researchers, a vision of how research can inform larger library service environment.

1, 2, 3, 4: Code, prototypes, analysis 1, 2, 3 collaboration, introduction, opportunity, inspiration, knowledge 4 insight 5 better information about library, archive, museum collections

OCLC - through the prototyping of new products and services, technical consultation, statistical analysis and support, and reputation enhancement Libraries - through technical leadership and the advancement of standards Library science scholars - through participation in research activities, support of data processing needs, and the LITA grant program The information community - through collaboration on standards, collaboration on open access to information (Search engines, publisher support), and on efforts such as the NSF Blue Ribbon panel on preservation of digital information, and the DataNet solicitation

(1,2)Creation of code or processes or data-services they can use to do their jobs better.

statistics (1,2,4) software(1,2,3,4) analysis(1,2,3,4)

Finding new and better ways to help the end user.

For both decision-makers and practitioners, I think inspiration is an extremely important function, e.g., by illustrating how new ideas and new technologies can be transalted into new services for both librarians and end-users (prototyping), or by casting interesting new perspectives and context on various library-related issues (data-mining, think-pieces, user studies). The inspiration can be manifested in imagining new futures, or in new ways to solve old problems.

Research findings and reports Prototypes Code New ideas and knowledge Serve as a catalyst

economies, improved processes, harnessed network benefits improved access to information

data mining (1, 4) catalyst for action (1,2,3) new ideas (1,2,3,4) publications (1,2,3,4) community coherence (2) continuing education (1,2)

inspiration 1,2,3,4 widgets 3, 4 forums for discussions with peers to identify needs, possible new solutions 1,2,3 I feel I should be listing more, but I'm drawing blank.

Research prototypes, algorithms, data resources, advance development 2) New products, market research

Research results (1, 2, 3, 4) Leadership (1, 2, 3, 4) Innovative tools (1, 2, 5)

new ideas, techniques and workflows (2), prototypes, and draft code (1) that may end up enriching OCLC products and services (2, 3); standards development activities, reports on research (2, 3, 4)

Most projects support libraries in some fashion. Linking services and code can also support non-library acccess to information.

"Hard problem" honest broker -- identifying the right parties; getting them in conversation, maybe committing resources to follow-through (e.g., data-mining, building proto-types). OR is also informally OCLC's general standards staff (NISO, etc. -- a slight caveat: product-central standards like MARC and various cooperative ILL/Cataloging agencies are handled in the respective product areas). 2) Solve it better -- reworking, redesigning, rethinking extant approaches (including OCLC products/services) 3) OR serves as OCLC's and the industry's "What if?" department -- small part think-tank, large part perspiration, OR has repeatedly invented something new, asked and answered new questions, etc. 4) Outside-in agent -- OR is often key to alerting OCLC -- and sometimes our communities -- to new technologies. OR is often OCLC's (and the industry's) "try it" lab for new technologies, standards, etc. Inside job: We also often are a touchpoint for folks on the outside who want to get OCLC's attention (from product/service issues to policies, to ideas for "OCLC should...").

1.) Tools to better serve users. 2.) More efficient access to information. 3.) Collaborative opportunities and innovative new developments to explore.

Research Projects to study current trends in patron use. These projects can be used to help focus funding and to decide in new directions for Librarians to take to server their patrons.

All-research data presented at conferences and online, program outcomes

Cool toys, 1,2,4. Ideas1,3,4. Expertise1,2,3,4. Venue for action1,4. Capacity for supporting work1,3,4. Doing the work itself1,2,3,4. Support1,2,3,4. Professional development opportunities,1,4.

OCLC membership - reports, examples, demonstrators, roadmaps Enterprise service groups - focused feedback on existing services and evidence about future service direction RLG Partners - best practices, editorial exhortation, prototypes, coordination, consensus, influence on the service array

Hopefully better, smarter applications in the end. Insight as to how their collections and services fit into the larger whole More knowledge and insight into the way their organizations should function. 2. Reports and publications that will help instruct a future generation of library professionals.

Assurance that a capable organization is looking out for their best interests (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) A benefit of OCLC membership or RLG Partnership (1, 3, 4, 6) Code (2)

What has been the most consistent feedback (positive or negative) you have heard about the current OCLC Programs and Research site?

It's difficult to find things, it sprawls and doesn't provide a clear, concise presentation of who we are and what we do, the links don't persist, it's out of date in many ways. (These comments reflect /programsnadresearch/, /programs/, and /research/.)

none

I rarely hear any feedback about the Web site; I suspect it is very rarely visited. I've heard complaints about difficulty of navigation (arcane nesting of content based on our own fluctuating conceptual model of what it is we do and why) and absence of timely updates. I don't think a Web site that is managed by an editorial staff can provide the kind of immediacy that some partners are hoping for.

I have heard no feedback on the general site, or the presentation of our work agenda on out site. I doubt we've had many people look at that portion of the site. I have heard some feedback on some of the information we publish on the site - reports, podcasts, presentations. Those seem to be well-received.

I don't hear anything about the site at all, but I don't see that as reflective of a problem... my efforts are more naturally discovered via other paths, I think.

Can't find anything. 2. It's not current/out-of-date/feels old 3. Too Wordy 4. Doesn't really help communicate who/what Research is. 5. Too much marketing, not enough code/examples/help/wiki-ness...

I haven't heard anything at all about the site.

Haven't really heard anything negative or positive about it.

I have not really heard any feedback about the site at all. Not sure if this means that people feel it is "good enough", or if they simply do not visit the Web site often enough to form an opinion one way or the other.

People consistently tell me that they cannot find our papers and presentations on the site. That the site is difficult to use and that it is extremely outdated. Upcoming presentations and papers have actually passed (sometimes months before). The news is often outdated and we do not consistently post presentations, papers, and news.

I'm not sure that many use it (I haven't heard any feedback) I know that it's hard to find things you know are there It's currently bifurcated in a way that makes sense only to us. And I worry about the new bifurcation between the web site and the WebJunction site.

none

Frankly, hardly anybody I know looks at the site. They follow the direct links to papers or projects we send out.

I can't find my way around in it. 2. It's out of date. 3. It's schizophrenic. Programs and Research don't have the same look and feel.

Difficult to navigate Not kept up-to-date Archiving is very messy

Dead links to previous reports

n/a

People have liked project descriptions (though one also gets complaints over "stale" web pages) and ResearchWorks.

1.) Satisfaction with the list of projects that the staff is currently working on. 2.) Access to the blogs of a few of the staff members. 3.) Share their research and ideas amongst other with similar interests.

Missing documents and presentations months after they were suposed to be posted.

Not as engaging/attractive as rest of OCLC site

Hard to find anything. Too much clicking. Too many words.

Can't tell what you do or why I should care Can't find what I'm looking for Can"t tell who it"s for

I haven't actually heard that many -- I experience my own frustrations.

Positive: It is thorough and contains a lot of information. Negative: it is difficult to navigate (poor user experience), it is confusing (inconsistent messaging) and it is cumbersome (too much). Negative: it contains many broken links to old RLG material (doesn't hold to the standard of offering persistent URLs). Negative: it's too boring, not flashy or current enough.

If you could wave a wand and change one thing about the OCLC Programs and Research site, what would you change and how would it be different when you were done?

I'd consolidate all content under one identity with a single home page, eliminate the presentation of Research and Programs as completely separate areas of content, and bring all content completely up to date. (This is not all I feel needs to be done, and it doesn't implicitly comment on the WebJunction platform. I took the "one thing" phrase very literally.)

about all i use on it is the researchworks page and a couple of the project pages. I'd love to see them kept up-to-date

It would disappear into the ether and be replaced by streams of content more usefully presented in other environments.

I would have stats for the downloads of reports, podcasts and presentations so we can more accurately assess the impacts of our work-products.

I don't have major concerns about the research site. It is one of several channels through which my work is exposed, and probably not the most important. I do think it is an important vehicle to expose OCLC efforts to our primary constituents (libraries) as well as to staff internal to OCLC. It is also important to convey more clearly the rather more complicated mission that has emerged as a consequnece of the merging of Research and RLG programs, but it is the message that is important to get right -- the specifics of how that might be communicated on the web site will follow fairly naturally i would hope. Finally, I *think* it would be usef ul to have more web-2.0 capabilities on our website (Wikis for project work, perhaps?) but I'm not sure how that can or should evolve, other than engaging users through participation seems a strong Web theme that we should take more advantage of.

I would start a site, a companion to our main website, for programmers/by programmers. I think we skew heavily academic in our style and approach and I think more and more of what we do is API/Web Serviced based. There is a clear market channel for how to communicate and build community around APIs and Web services (see Google/Amazon/Yahoo/Flickr).

I don't visit the site.

For my day-to-day responsibilities, it serves my purpose. I don't access it very often.

I think the separation of the site into a Programs section and a Research section is becoming increasingly awkward. To me, this is the primary deficiency of the current site. We need to do a better job of organizing our work by theme or topic, rather than by who does it.

Timeliness of information included on the site. Outdated information is worse to me than no information.

A single way to search for all "our" stuff, including the hangingtogether blog posts, reports, old RLG News/RLG DigiNews articles, retired stuff, digital archived stuff... Then at least when you know what you're looking for, you'd have a chance of finding it. I have people ask me for things that I can only find because I know their bizarre past and the various instantiations along their migration paths.

Much more information, and more up to date, about the scientists' projects.

I think the overarching grid provides a good high-level view of what we do. I'd start there. The site is currently fragmented between Research pages and Programs pages and I'd start from scratch, starting with the grid as the organizational structure. Since few people look at the site now (at least from what I've heard) I wouldn't bother with changing just "one thing". I'd like an easy way to look up any project that I could point folks to.

The entrance should introduce the entire group of us. It should be timely, dynamic, and snazzy. It should have an intuitive organization that leads naturally to all of our projects and program areas. Perhaps a better design will emerge from usability testing.

It would be one merged site with automatically redirected links from former report URLs to where they currently can be found.

Everything interesting is at the bottom of the structure - fine if you are looking for a paper or someones email address, and it should keep that basic function. Maybe a section on the top page with a newsish summary of a recent RLG report or research project, changing every month to keep it fresh.

I would make it have a much more modern look and feel (see for example MOMA's recently redesigned site http://www.moma.org/), with more graphics and, ideally, frequently-changing headline content. Our story-telling is weak (this is true of OCLC's site in general), and it's not always easy to find what's sought (true even more so of OCLC's site in general).

I would change the way we disseminate the information about the projects the staff are working on, despite positive feedback i have head about that portion of the OCLC research website. I don't think it is as user friendly as it could be, and it's a little intimidating, to be honest, a long list of links to projects does not seem like the most effective way to communicate the projects we're working on here. I would like to "clean it up" a little and make it slightly more interactive and give it a more attractive interface.

I would change it to a no static site, using either XML or even a backing database to allow faster updates and a uniform appearace. To me it appears that the RLG side of the site gets a good deal more attention than the research side.

Link preliminary descriptive content to the activities/work that supports how we define our department, such as the present: "OCLC Programs and Research works with the community to

collaboratively identify problems and opportunities
prototype and test solutions
to develop consensus
publish insightful and timely reports
share findings through presentations and professional interactions."

I.e. support these, or our new set of definitions, with demonstrations of our value (imagining the new matrix here)

Interactive. Let users update their own data where it appears.

It would tell me everything I needed to know on the first page and let me get feeds of everything I wanted to follow

Be able to search and find things within the PAR site. Be able to get to older "RLG" content

It would be designed with the user in mind/be easy to navigate and easy to understand.

Who else is doing the things the OCLC Research tries to do?

I'm not sure anyone else covers the entire range we do, especially not a single organization with a dedicated staff.

Library of Congress Otherwise, scattered pieces all across the academic and commercial world

Ithaka, with fewer resources. CLIR, with even less. CNI advocates for similar things but doesn't perform any work.

DLF, Ithaka, professional organizations in certain domains (e.g. SAA) outside of the US: national libraries

Private industry (the Amazoogles, for example) working to provide information services to the public Scholars - Researchers in digital libraries and repositoreis for example Large research libraries - EG. Stanford, which has strong and visible activities in preservation

I couldn't tell you.

To my knowledge, OCLC is the only organization that embodies the service and research missions expressed above, broadly speaking. However, at a more granular level (e.g., on a project-by-project basis), there are certainly other organizations - research libraries, I-school departments, some vendors, etc. - whose work overlaps with our work in various areas. But this is not necessarily a bad thing: it helps us engage in very productive external collaborations, where we can represent the interests of libraries as expressed in our mission.

There are multiple groups, such as CLIR, ARL, DLF, JISC, Ithaca, and even the University of Rochester who do some of the things that OCLC Research does. However, none of these have the breadth and depth that can be tapped in OCLC Research.

Many have similar claims, that is why it is difficult but important to distinguish ourselves. The closest in the minds of our audiences would be CNI, DLF, and ARL - but we know many ways these are quite different. There are perhaps more organizations that closely resemble us in the UK. But they are almost all funding bodies.

ARL does some of it. Individual scholars in library and info science. [my 20 minutes are up]

Code4Lib seems to attract lots of good programmers with innovative ideas. JISC funds a lot of good research that seems to get good results.

The major university and research libraries. Some of the not-for-profit foundations and communities (Ithaka, CLIR, DLF).

Ithaka ASIS&T IMLS (Google Labs, though in a different, for-profit setting for its own good)

Pieces of what we do may be touched on by DLF, CLIR, ARL, and CNI

library/ info science schools, some commercial entities like Google.

Various key agencies (e.g., NYPL), LIS programs (e.g, UIUC), research units (e.g., Microsoft Research) and associations (e.g., ARL) would some general overlap 9and a few like ARL rather specific overlap), but OR doesn't any exact-match peers to my knowledge. Asked to give a sample of agency web sites that might roughly approximate in mission and scope (if not necessarily scale), I'd offer: http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/ http://labs.nypl.org/ [NLA labs] (see: http://hangingtogether.org/?p=397) http://dclibrarylabs.org/ http://www.arl.org/ http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ http://www.niso.org/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/ http://research.yahoo.com/

Numerous committees established by ALA, LC, etc., Library and Information Science Graduate programs, Google and similar entities.

Google

Practitioner researchers, LIS faculty (with the "enhancing OCLC's image" part excluded)

I don't think any entity exactly covers the capacities we have.

Council on Library and Information Resources Coalition for Networked Information Association of Research Libraries Digital Library Federation Joint Information Systems Committee (UK) ALA/ACRL and various of their units

In the US: DLF, CNI, CLIR I think people in the US think we should have a JISC to fulfill this role, but don't understand what JISC is or how it functions.

No one organization does what OCLC Resarch tries to do.

What frustrated you about this questionnaire?

Possible ambiguities around "OCLC Research," "the RLG Partnership," or "OCLC Programs and Research" were a bit frustrating, but that's also part of the environment, not just the survey.

Eric, glad you are on board for this! If asked, I would have shared that the website got updated more often when Program Officers had the power to do so themselves. I also would have said something about being very truly hopeful and excited about our new more interactive presence with WebJunction, and I would have shared my fear that our audience is not big enough to make the site look live-in.

I think the most frustrating thing is meeting someone from another part of OCLC and saying I work in Research ... either there is derision ("You People") or there is "what DO you people do?" And I honestly don't have an answer for them. I think both reactions come from a fundemental lack of knowledge within OCLC, and outside OCLC for that matter, of what Research 'does' and how we fit into OCLC as a whole.

Nothing really.

Nothing in particular comes to mind.

It seemed to cover the right ground. I really think the redesign of the web site has to be done in close conjunction with WebJunction. (I'd like to see WebJunction be processes that are called out to from the web site, rather than as a second go-to location. Then we could have one structure that linked out to working group stuff as needed and we wouldn't have to think through the WebJunction presence as a stand-alone activity. I'm just having this thought now, so I'm not sure how well-thought-out it is). thanks and Welcome, Eric! Ricky

No easy yes/no or multiple choice questions. :)

So open ended, I don't think I did the questions justice. Think I'd be able to react to a multiple-question survey as a followup better - that might inspire better answers :-)

I didn't have a problem with the questions. I wonder why I'm being asked them, though.

(Perhaps a question about the functional relationship between the groups of staff who report to Jim and Lorcan...?)

Reasonable questions, reasonably poised. Might have been interesting to have offered categories of current content and have folks rate their relative importance 9to self and also perceived importance to what the responder considered the key audience), maybe with space for comments, complaints, suggestions...

I guess i would have liked to have known where this impetus to change our web presence came from? I understand why it is needed, but i'm wondering why now?

I always prefer multiple choice quizzes to essay tests.

Give me examples of other sites that look and behave the way you wished ours did.

Thank you!

I want to turn this into a branding/messaging exercise because (being a marketing communications person) I believe that our current state of problems is caused by the fact that we've never properly defined ourselves and communicated to our staff and the enterprise what we are, what we do, who we do it for and how we do it. I think this questionnaire is a step in the right direction, but I would like to take it further. If we don't completely address these issues now we will be in the same situation with our new Web site.