A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OCLC, INC. AND THE WASHINGTON LIBRARY NETWORK IN TWENTY-NINE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Two hundred and two surveys were mailed to librarians at twenty-nine Pacific Northwest academic libraries that were members of either the Washington Library Network (14) or OCLC, Inc. (15). The librarians were asked to rate their degree of satisfaction with twenty-one aspects of their bibliographic database and the degree of usefulness of twenty-four database capabilities, regardless of their current availability, on a five-point Likert-type scale. One hundred fifty-five (77 percent) of the librarians responded. Chi-square tests were used to compare their responses.;WLN librarians rated significantly higher the usefulness of the abilities to order materials online from vendors and to perform title keyword searches. OCLC librarians rated significantly higher the usefulness of the abilities to perform interlibrary loan transactions online, to limit searches by date(s), and to limit searches by format.;WLN librarians rated satisfaction with the number of access points available to them significantly higher than did OCLC librarians. OCLC librarians rated their training manuals significantly higher.;The ratings were also compared according to three categories of librarians. Administrators rated their satisfaction with use of personnel and the system trouble shooting significantly higher than did technical services librarians or public services librarians. Technical services librarians rated update training and the input and edit of Library of Congress records significantly higher.;In an overall satisfaction rating, WLN librarians were significantly more satisfied with their bibliographic database than were the OCLC librarians.;The survey recipients were also asked to rank ten factors from 1 to 10 as to their importance in the decision process of determining which bibliographic database to join. Both OCLC and WLN librarians ranked improving technical services and the quality of the database most important. WLN librarians gave more importance to improving reference service, while OCLC librarians gave size of database more importance.;The results of the survey indicate that there are significant differences in some instances between the opinions of academic librarians using OCLC, Inc. and those using the Washington Library Network.