WorldCat Identities
WorldCat is a union catalog that lists the collections of 17,900 libraries in 123 countries and territories[1] that participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc.[2] The subscribing member libraries work together to maintain WorldCat's database. It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available for free to libraries, but the catalog is also used for other subscription OCLC services (such as resource sharing and collection management). WorldCat is used by the general public and by librarians for cataloging and research.
History
OCLC was founded in 1967 under the leadership of Fred Kilgour.[3] That same year, OCLC began to develop the union catalog technology that would later evolve into WorldCat; the first catalog records were added in 1971.[3][4]
In 2003, OCLC began the "Open WorldCat" pilot program, making shorter records from a some of WorldCat available to partner web sites and booksellers. OCLC did this so that subscribing member libraries' collections would become more accessible.[5][6]
In October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project called WikiD. It let readers add comments and structured-field information to any WorldCat record.[7] WikiD was later phased out, although WorldCat later incorporated user-generated content in other ways.[8][9]
In 2006, it became possible for anyone to search WorldCat directly at its open website,[10] It had been available on the web to subscribing libraries for more than ten years already.[11] Options for more sophisticated searches of WorldCat have remained available through the FirstSearch interface.[10]
In 2007, WorldCat Identities began showing pages for 20 million "identities." Identities are mostly authors and people who books are about.[12]
In May 2019, WorldCat held over 450 million bibliographic records in 484 languages. Record over 2.8 billion physical and digital library items.[2] The WorldCat persons dataset (mined from WorldCat) included over 100 million people.[13]
Related pages
References
- ↑ About OCLCOnline Computer Library Center. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Inside WorldCat. OCLCOCLC, Inc.. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Margalit Fox (August 2, 2006). "Frederick G. Kilgour, Innovative Librarian, Dies at 92". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/us/02kilgour.html. Retrieved 2009-12-22. "Frederick G. Kilgour, a distinguished librarian who nearly 40 years ago transformed a consortium of Ohio libraries into what is now the largest library cooperative in the world, making the catalogs of thousands of libraries around the globe instantly accessible to far-flung patrons, died on Monday in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was 92.".
- ↑ A brief history of WorldCat. oclc.org (February 10, 2015). Retrieved February 13, 2014.
- ↑ O'Neill, Nancy. Open WorldCat Pilot: A User's Perspective (in en). Searcher 12 (10) (Nov–Dec 2004). p. 54–60. OCLC 201889986.
- ↑ Quint, Barbara. OCLC project opens WorldCat records to Google. infotoday.com (October 27, 2003)Information Today. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
- ↑ WikiD (in en-US)OCLC. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
- ↑ Storey, Tom. A WorldCat community: using WorldCat.org to build a social network of the world's library users. NextSpace (7) (September 2007)OCLC. p. 16–17. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
- ↑ Bertot, John Carlo. Assessing the usability of WorldCat Local: findings and considerations. The Library Quarterly 82 (2) (April 2012). p. 207–221. doi:10.1086/664588.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Hane, Paula J.. OCLC to open WorldCat searching to the world. infotoday.com (July 17, 2006)Information Today. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
- ↑ Prucha, Francis Paul. Handbook for research in American history: a guide to bibliographies and other reference works (1994). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 25–27. ISBN 0803237014. OCLC 28018047.
- ↑ Hickey, Thomas B.. WorldCat Identities: Another View of the Catalog. NextSpace (6) (April 15, 2007)OCLC. p. 18–19. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ↑ Data strategy [WorldCat]. oclc.org. Retrieved 2018-02-11.
Further reading
- Blackman, Cathy. WorldCat and SkyRiver: a comparison of record quantity and fullness. Library Resources & Technical Services 58 (3) (July 2014). p. 178–186. doi:10.5860/lrts.58n3.178.
- Breeding, Marshall. Library services platforms: a maturing genre of products. Library Technology Reports 51 (4) (May 2015). p. 1–38. doi:10.5860/ltr.51n4.
- Matthews, Joseph R.. An environmental scan of OCLC alternatives: a management perspective. Public Library Quarterly 35 (3) (July 2016). p. 175–187. doi:10.1080/01616846.2016.1210440.
- Template:Cite tech report
- What the OCLC online union catalog means to me: a collection of essays (1997). Dublin, Ohio: OCLC. ISBN 1556532237. OCLC 37492023.
- Wilson, Kristen. The knowledge base at the center of the universe. Library Technology Reports 52 (6) (August 2016). p. 1–35. doi:10.5860/ltr.52n6.
- WorldCat data licensing. oclc.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31. See also: Data licenses & attribution. oclc.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31. Information about licensing of WorldCat records and some other OCLC data.
Other websites
- WorldCatoclc.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31. Information on the OCLC website about WorldCat.
- Bibliographic Formats and Standardsoclc.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
- WorldCat Identitiesworldcat.org. Retrieved 2018-12-31.