WorldCat is a
union catalogA union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Union catalogs have been created in a range of media, including book format, microform, cards and more recently, networked electronic databases...
which itemizes the collections of more than 71,000
librariesA library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can mean the collection,...
which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries from more than ninety countries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 90 million different records pointing to over 1.4 billion (as of 2009) physical and digital assets in more than 360 languages, as of November 2007.
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WorldCat is a
union catalogA union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Union catalogs have been created in a range of media, including book format, microform, cards and more recently, networked electronic databases...
which itemizes the collections of more than 71,000
librariesA library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can mean the collection,...
which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries from more than ninety countries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 90 million different records pointing to over 1.4 billion (as of 2009) physical and digital assets in more than 360 languages, as of November 2007. It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other fee-based OCLC services (such as resource sharing and collection management). WorldCat was founded by
Fred KilgourFrederick Gridley Kilgour was an American librarian and educator known as the founding director of OCLC , an international computer library network and database that changed the way people use libraries...
in 1967.
Evolution of services
In 2003, OCLC began the "Open WorldCat" pilot program, making abbreviated records from a subset of WorldCat available to partner Web sites and booksellers, to increase the accessibility of its member libraries’ collections. In 2006, it became possible to search WorldCat directly at its website. In 2007, WorldCat Identities began providing pages for 20 million 'identities', predominantly authors and persons who are the subjects of published titles.
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