Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Victoria Johnson says the goal of the O.C.L.C. council is to make library resources accessible for everyone.
Librarian joins the ranks of the O.C.L.C.
Sunnyvale woman only librarian selected in the western U.S.
By Daniel Hindin
Sunnyvale resident Victoria Johnson, Director of the Sunnyvale Library, was recently named to the Online Cooperative Library Center (O.C.L.C.) Users Council. Being chosen for the council is considered a very rewarding distinction in the library world.
"The O.C.L.C. is a membership organization which promotes libraries, library use and librarianship, and provides processes and products for the benefits of users," says Johnson. "Their goal is to make library resources more accessible for everyone."
The O.C.L.C. has created an international database for all books. If persons in China went to their local library to check out a particular book and her librarian informed them they didn't carry it, the librarian could simply click onto her computer, type in the name of the book, and find out that a library--perhaps in Sunnyvale--carried that book.
The librarian could then request the book and have it sent from California to China on an interlibrary loan.
This sort of database, used as an all-encompassing catalog utility, cuts individual costs significantly, says Johnson.
Members of the council convene at O.C.L.C. headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, three times every year to discuss long range strategies. To be elected to the O.C.L.C. Users Council is especially satisfying, says Johnson, because members are elected by their peers. There are only 60 members worldwide.
Most members of the O.C.L.C. are librarians of private libraries or academic libraries.
Johnson is the only public librarian in the western United States, which consists of 11 states, to be given this honor.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
