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Oregon State University Libraries and Press will make it easier for patrons to utilize resources in academic libraries in Oregon, Washington and Idaho by providing them access to more than 9 million books, journal articles, and other materials.

Starting Dec. 1, OSU will transition to a new library system for finding books, articles and more. It also will change the way library staff acquire, catalog and circulate materials.  The 37 academic libraries of the Orbis Cascade Alliance Library Consortium, of which OSU is a member, are implementing this new system.

While transition to the new system begins over Thanksgiving break, a manual circulation system will be in place so users will still be able to check out materials. 

"A longer term advantage of the shared system is that the libraries will be able to share and streamline acquisitions, cataloging and resource sharing processes among the participating libraries," said Cheryl Middleton, associate university librarian for learning and engagement. 

For example, each year a package of thousands of electronic books is purchased for all members of the alliance. Each of the 37 libraries has been responsible for adding catalog records for books into their local collections. With the new system, the records only have to be entered once and they'll appear in the catalogs of every participating library, as well as a central catalog shared by the alliance, called Summit.

After OSU makes the transition, some things will look and work a little differently.

• Users will see changes in how the 1Search search box works. They'll be able to broaden their search beyond OSU's collections to include materials from all of the libraries in the consortium. Or they can continue to limit a search to locate OSU items or journal articles only. The new search interface will search 9 million books and journal articles, audiovisual materials and more.
• The current version of the library catalog will be going away and the functions of the old catalog will be rolled into 1Search.  
• OSU's Interlibrary Loan and resource sharing services will remain the same; users will just access them from a different system.