Help users find all the resources your library offers

Medicine Hat College’s library provides access to more than 35,000 streaming videos through databases such as Films on Demand and Curio.ca. However, the videos weren’t always easy for students and faculty members to find. “We were paying for this access,” explained Carly Ridgewell, Library Services Specialist, Technology, “but unless you went directly into the databases, you weren’t really able to see what we had available.” She continued, “We can’t continually do a marketing program for these databases so people always know they’re there!”

Carly's boss, Access and Technology Librarian Joanne Mokry, wanted these educational streaming videos to appear directly in the discovery layer that the library's users rely on to find resources. WorldShare^® Management Services (WMS), their cloud-based library management system, made this possible for Carly and her colleagues to do. Using a WMS cataloging tool, WorldShare Collection Manager, “we created WorldCat^® knowledge base collections for our streaming video titles, which made them discoverable and accessible through our discovery layer, WorldCat Discovery.” This collection also made it possible for Carly to share the metadata she created through the cooperatively maintained WorldCat knowledge base.

Carly and her team maintain a WorldCat knowledge base collection for Curio.ca with streaming videos from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The library staff updates the collection monthly with new records for videos in English and French by enhancing the records they receive from CBC—usually by adding OCLC numbers—and creating new records where needed. “Really, the only process for Curio that takes any time is just manually grabbing those OCLC numbers and creating any new records, usually for French videos,” Carly said.

Carly acknowledges that not every record they add to the Curio collection is perfect, but that’s why she relies on the OCLC community. “We do what we can,” she said, “and it would be great if there was maybe a French-speaking library in Quebec that would like to see those records improved. With the community aspect, hopefully it can get to the point where they’re really good records.”

Carly also made records from Medicine Hat’s Films on Demand collection available to other WMS libraries, and many began using it. Although her collection focused on Canadian streaming videos, she said, “somebody in the States had actually mentioned that they were using the Canadian one because it had more OCLC numbers” than the vendor’s US collection. Eventually, the vendor did enhance the metadata for both collections, and Carly’s team no longer has to maintain records for the community.

Now that Films on Demand, Curio, and other video collections are included in Medicine Hat’s discovery layer, Carly said, “there’s more streaming videos being watched than before—about 14% more across our main databases—so people are actually finding those resources.” She has also seen an increase in faculty instructors requesting links to the resources through the college’s Blackboard system. “The instructors want material that’s easy for their students to access,” she said, “so we’ve been helping them find the material and content they want for their classes.”

Library at a glance

• Supports more than 3,000 students, about 20% of whom are not from Canada
• Initial collection was established through student fundraising
• The library’s MakerspaceMHC houses resources for 3D modeling and printing, video game development, poster creation, and more