Swiss metadata hub picks OCLC's discovery tool

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OCLC will implement a 'Library 2.0' meta-catalogue of Swiss university libraries and the Swiss National Library. This is part of the SwissBib project, a metadata hub that will provide the platform for collating and publishing the combined collections of the libraries involved. The implementation project is scheduled to run from November 2008 to February 2010.

The SwissBib selection committee has opted for a combined solution from OCLC. CBS software provides the back-end bibliographic component. The approximately 17 million records from the library catalogues will be loaded in the CBS system, converted, matched and enriched. They will then be transferred to a publishing platform where OCLC TouchPoint will provide the discovery functionality coupled with the FAST search and index engine.

It is anticipated that the project will lead eventually to the replacement of the majority of OPACs currently in use by Swiss university libraries. The solution also offers the potential in the future to raise the visibility of Swiss university libraries to a global audience on the web, through its synchronisation capability with WorldCat. 

SwissBib will be implemented in partnership with the library network of Western Switzerland (RERO), the library network of German-speaking Switzerland (IDS), the Swiss National Library, the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries and the ETH-Bibliothek under the auspices of the University Library of Basel.  SwissBib is funded by the Swiss University Conference.