Melvyl transition to WorldCat Discovery is delayed

Melvyl will not transition from WorldCat Local (WCL) to WorldCat Discovery (WCD) this summer. While OCLC has made significant progress, WorldCat Discovery is not yet functionally complete for Melvyl. The earliest possible date for a move to WCD would be December 2016. The CDL Melvyl Operations Team will consult with campuses to determine whether a mid-year move would be practical and desirable. If a mid-year move is not desirable, we will aim for summer 2017. We will continue to monitor the progress of WorldCat Discovery and advocate for functionality that is essential for Melvyl.

OCLC has a new product management team for WorldCat Local, WorldCat Discovery and FirstSearch. In the past six months they have done an in-depth assessment of the product suite and determined there is still much work to be done. The product team has recommended we wait to transition to WorldCat Discovery. In particular, they are focusing on search results relevancy, facets for filtering search results, and improving the representative work in clustered search results. They have also decided to keep FirstSearch as a separate product rather than merging it with WorldCat Discovery. We do not yet have a timeline for the new FirstSearch beta.  See the announcement from OCLC that FirstSearch will continue as a separate service.

As always, for the latest information, see the CDLINFO Melvyl posts.