Osmosis pilot - eLGAR holdings on the National Union Catalogue

National Library will be using a new piece of software, called "Osmosis", to pilot a new method of adding NZ libaries' holdings to the National Union Catalogue (NUC). In July last year, the National Library invited a number of libraries, including eLGAR, to be part of an initial trial of the new software. Porirua Public Library, Auckland University, AUT, Canterbury University and Victoria University are also taking part, along with the National Library itself.

Holdings on the NZ NUC will be automatically loaded to OCLC's Worldcat

eLGAR is scheduled to send its next extract of holdings to the National Library in July 2008. These records will form part of the pilot project. The last complete refresh of all eLGAR libaries' holdings on Te Puna was carried out late in 2007 - the first time since July 2005. Because the National Library is understandably reluctant to carry out any further batch loading of libraries’ holdings using their existing processes, holdings of the eLGAR libaries' will not be updated either manually (by us) or in batch (by the National Library) until they can be processed using Osmosis (i.e. in July). When our turn comes, a complete refresh will be carried out. From that point on, our holdings will be maintained on the NUC at regular agreed intervals, such as monthly or quarterly.

The records that were reported last year included:
· Book NF and graphic novels in English pre & post-June 2005
· ACL heritage records (books only)– fiction & non-fiction where identified with a 583 note
· Foreign language fiction (post-2005),
· Foreign language non- fiction (post-2005),

Further information about the OSMOSIS Project has been posted on the National Library website http://www.natlib.govt.nz/about-us/current-initiatives/osmosis-pilot. It includes brief pilot information, a timeline and links to related websites.
-- article supplied by Sarah Menzies, Cataloguer, North Shore Libraries