[Overview]
WorldCat was created in 1971 by the non-profit OCLC (Online Computer
Library Center) as the union catalog of the university libraries in the
State of Ohio. Over the years, OCLC became a national and worldwide
library cooperative, and WorldCat the largest library catalog in the
world. In 2005, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400
languages from 9,000 member libraries (paid subscription) in 112
countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to 1
billion documents available in these libraries. In August 2006,
WorldCat began to migrate to the web through the beta version of the
new website WorldCat.org. Member libraries now provide free access to
their catalogs and electronic resources: books, audio books, abstracts
and full-text articles, photos, music CDs and videos. Another pioneer
site was RedLightGreen, launched in Spring 2004 (with a beta version in
Fall 2003) as the web version of the RLG Union Catalog, another major
union catalog created in 1980 by the Research Libraries Group (RLG).
RedLightGreen ended its service in November 2006, after a successful
3-year run, and RLG joined OCLC.
[In Depth (published in 1999)]
In 1998, two organizations - OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) and
RLIN (Research Library Information Network) - were running
international bibliographical databases through the internet.
The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a non-profit, membership,
library computer service and research organization dedicated to
furthering access to the world's information and reducing information
costs. More than 27,000 libraries in 65 countries were using OCLC
services to manage their collections and to provide online reference
services. The website was available in English, Chinese, French,
German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
OCLC services included: access services; collections and technical
services; reference services; resource sharing; Dewey Decimal
Classification (published by OCLC Forest Press); and preservation
resources. From its headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC operated one of
the world's largest library information networks. Libraries in the US
joined OCLC through their OCLC-affiliated regional networks. Libraries
outside the US received OCLC services through OCLC Asia Pacific, OCLC
Canada, OCLC Europe, OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean, or via
international distributors.
OCLC was also running WorldCat - the name of the OCLC Online Union
Catalog - which is a merged electronic catalog of library catalogs
around the world, and the world's largest bibliographic database with
its 38 million records (in early 1998) in 400 languages (with
transliteration for non-Roman languages), and an annual increase of 2
million records.
WorldCat stemmed from a concept which is the same for all union
catalogs: earn time to avoid the cataloguing of the same document by
many catalogers worldwide. When they are about to catalog a
publication, the catalogers of the member libraries search the OCLC
catalog. If they find the record, they copy it in their own catalog and
add some local information. If they don't find the record, they create
it in the OCLC catalog, and this new record is immediately available to
all the catalogers of the member libraries worldwide.
Unlike RLIN, another main union catalog that accepts several records
for the same document (please see below), the OCLC Online Union Catalog
accepts only one record per document, and asks its members not to
create duplicate records for documents that were already cataloged. The
records are created in USMARC format (MARC: Machine Readable Catalog)
according to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd version (AACR2).
What is the history of OCLC? "In 1967, the presidents of the colleges
and universities in the state of Ohio founded the Ohio College Library
Center (OCLC) to develop a computerized system in which the libraries
of Ohio academic institutions could share resources and reduce costs.
OCLC's first offices were in the Main Library on the campus of the Ohio
State University (OSU), and its first computer room was housed in the
OSU Research Center. It was from these academic roots that Frederick G.
Kilgour, OCLC's first president, oversaw the growth of OCLC from a
regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an international
network. In 1977, the Ohio members of OCLC adopted changes in the
governance structure that enabled libraries outside Ohio to become
members and participate in the election of the Board of Trustees; the
Ohio College Library Center became OCLC, Inc. In 1981, the legal name
of the corporation became OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Today, OCLC serves more than 27,000 libraries of all types in the US
and 64 other countries and territories." (excerpt from the 1998
website)
In early 1998, WorldCat had 38 million records - with one record per
document. RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network) had 88 million
records - with several records per document.
RLIN was run by the Research Libraries Group (RLG). The central RLIN
database was a union catalog of 88 million items held in main libraries
belonging to RLG member institutions, including research and
specialized libraries, like law, technical, and corporate libraries.
RLIN included:
(1) records that described works cataloged by the Library of Congress,
the National Library of Medicine, the US Government Printing Office,
CONSER (Conversion of Serials Project), the British Library, the
British National Bibliography, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript
Collections, and RLG members and users;
(2) nearly all the books cataloged since 1968 and rapidly expanding
coverage for older materials;
(3) information about non-book materials ranging from musical scores,
films, videos, serials, maps, and recordings, to archival collections
and machine-readable data files;
(4) unique on-line access to special resources, such as the United
Nations' DOCFILE and CATFILE records, and the Rigler and Deutsch Index
to pre-1950 commercial sound recordings;
(5) international book vendors' in-process records, that were
transferred to bibliographers, acquisition services and catalogers, to
order records or help them for cataloguing items in their own local
databases.
RLIN also provided:
(1) A catalog of computer files. Machine-readable data files were
useful to a growing number of disciplines. RLIN contained records
describing a number of such files, from the full-text French literary
works in the ARTFL Database to the statistical data collected by the
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
at the University of Michigan;
(2) A catalog of archives and special collections. The archival and
manuscript collections of research libraries, museums, state archives,
and historical societies contained essential primary resources, but
information about their contents was often elusive. Archivists and
curators worked with RLG to create an automated format for these
collections. In 1998, there were 500,000 records available in RLIN for
archival collections located throughout North America. These records
described many collections by personal name, organization, subject, and
format.
RLIN also hosted the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), an
invaluable research tool for scholars in English culture, language, and
literature. This file provided extensive descriptions and holdings
information for letterpress materials printed in UK or any of its
dependencies in any language, from the beginnings of print to 1800 - as
well as for materials printed in English anywhere else in the world.
Produced by the ESTC editorial offices at the University of California,
Riverside, and the British Library, in partnership with the American
Antiquarian Society and over 1,600 libraries worldwide, the file was
updated and expanded daily. ESTC served as a comprehensive bibliography
of the hand-press era and as a census of surviving copies. ESTC
included 420,000 records as of June 1998, from the beginnings of print
(1473) through the 18th century - including materials ranging from
Shakespeare and Greek New Testaments to anonymous ballads, broadsides,
songs, advertisements and other ephemera.