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Recently we were looking at fixing a broken link in the OPLIN self-service interface, and it got us thinking about the value that self service even added. Here at OPLIN we try to hassle you as little as possible, and we came to the realization that asking you to keep track of a user name and password that you rarely use, just to login and file tickets to our standards is unnecessary.

Just a note to let you know that EBSCO has just added Highwire Press from Stanford to their search results.  Highwire Press is the largest archive of free full-text science in the world, with over 2 million free, full-text articles.  To see what Highwire Press has to offer, go to http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl.  If you have any questions, please contact OPLIN Support at support@oplin.org.

Overnight this Thursday (September 25, 2008)  World Book will be launching World Book Student, the upgrade/replacement for World Book Online Reference Center, their middle school site. You can see the preview or the announcement (.PDF).

OPLIN is legally required to make funds available to public libraries "...to help local libraries purchase or maintain filters to screen out obscene and illegal internet materials." (HB119, 2007) The amount of this earmark currently stands at $85,725; any portion of this earmark not granted to libraries gets returned to the state treasury. (The earmark can't be used for any other OPLIN budget needs.)

The OPLIN Report to Stakeholders reveals what we have known all along - money is tight everywhere.  Unfortunately, because of even more recent state-level cuts, the OPLIN budget is CRITICAL.

Take a look at the report to see what we have accomplished this last fiscal year and to get a glimpse of what may be coming down the road.

At the OPLIN Stakeholders Meeting on September 12, we regretfully announced that the statewide OPLIN subscription to EBSCO NoveList will be canceled when our current contract ends on June 30, 2009.

EBSCO has announced their new Customer Success Center (http://www.ebscohost.com/customerSuccess/).  Features for public libraries include:

WorldBook is now providing webinar-based training for the various facets of WorldBook that are included in the Ohio Web Library.  There are two sets of webinars; general ones being offered to U.S. customers at large (the schedule includes the Discover product, which OWL does not get, so take note when registering), and ones geared specifically to Ohio libraries. 

(Yes, you are an OPLIN stakeholder.  If you work in an Ohio public library, you're one of us.) The Ohio Public Library Information Network's (OPLIN) Stakeholders meeting will be held on Friday, September 12th from 9:00 am - 10:00 am at the Lausche Building.

The player can be downloaded from:
http://www.tutorials.com/cust_supt/cc_faq_plugin_n.asp?ugid=dHV0b3JpYWxz

Library technical staff might want to pre-install this player on their
public access computers. Users who try to access the tutorials from a
computer that does not have the player installed will be taken to the
Learn2.com site and asked to install it.