FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Candi Clevenger, Communications Manager, (614) 728-3600 ext. 329,
candi@ohiolink.edu.
Madeline Brookshire, Cuyahoga County Public Library, 216-749-9496,
mbrookshire@cuyahoga.lib.oh.us
Columbus, Ohio (August 16, 2004) – Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Public Library (CCPL) will become the first public library to participate in the Ohio Library and Information Network’s online borrowing system during a one-year pilot project. Beginning August 23, Cuyahoga County Public Library borrowers will have access to 40.1 million items from OhioLINK, a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio.
“This pilot will provide an opportunity to define how expanding the OhioLINK program to include public libraries can further leverage the state’s information resources and benefit both Ohio’s higher education community and all Ohioans,“ Tom Sanville, executive director of OhioLINK, said.
Records for Cuyahoga County Public Library’s 600,000 items are currently available in the OhioLINK Library Catalog. Beginning August 23, the 600,000 students, faculty, staff and researchers OhioLINK serves will be able to request books from CCPL’s collection online. Cuyahoga County Public Library users will also be able to request items online from any of the 85 OhioLINK member libraries. Requested materials will be delivered in just two to three days and may be picked up at any of CCPL’s 28 locations or any participating OhioLINK library.
“We’re proud to be the first public library to offer area students and their families access to the vast resources of OhioLINK as we strive for increased customer conveniences,“ said Sari Feldman, Executive Director of Cuyahoga County Public Library.
This winter, OhioLINK will begin a similar one-year pilot program with the Upper Arlington High School Library in central Ohio. The pilot will give high school students the chance to access scholarly materials from OhioLINK libraries.
OhioLINK users have been benefiting from a shared catalog of library resources, combined with online borrowing capabilities, since 1994. Users have access to millions more titles than available in their local campus libraries, and requested items are delivered in days, not weeks as with traditional interlibrary loan. Online borrowing continues to be a core service of the OhioLINK program; 666,800 library items were borrowed through the network from June 2003 to June 2004.
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The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is a consortium of academic libraries that serves more than 600,000 students, faculty, and staff at 85 institutions. OhioLINK's membership includes 17 public universities, 23 community/technical colleges, 44 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio. OhioLINK provides easy access to information and rapid delivery of library materials throughout the state. For more information, visit www.ohiolink.edu.
Cuyahoga County Public Library ranks as one of the nation’s 10 best and busiest library systems, circulating around 13 million items annually. It has 28 branches and serves 630,000 people of all ages living in 47 communities. Its mission is to provide open access to resources that inform, entertain, and enrich. Customer service and customer convenience are top priorities. For more information, visit www.cuyahogalibrary.org.