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Cooperation Governance Membership

Regional profiles
About OCLC : Cooperation : Regional profiles

Regional profiles

The cooperative’s vision of connecting the world’s libraries is moving forward. In the past 10 years, the number of member libraries from outside the U.S. has increased from about 1,800 to more than 5,000 and the number of countries from 66 to 86.

Americas

The Americas covers countries in North America, Central America and South America. As of July 2009, more than 21,000 libraries were members from this region. The office for OCLC Latin American and the Caribbean was opened in 1995, and OCLC Canada was established in 1997. In 2002, OCLC Mexico was established in Mexico City.

Europe, Middle East, Africa

OCLC established an office in Europe in 1981, located in Birmingham England, to to bring the cooperative’s programs and services to national research, academic, college, public, and special libraries. Today,about 2,000 libraries from Europe, the Middle East and Africa are members of the OCLC cooperative. EMEA has regional offices in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the U.K. The cooperative works with professionals and end users from academic and public libraries, the health sector, as well as government and cultural institutions.

Asia Pacific

Established in 1986, OCLC Asia Pacific is bringing the cooperative’s information services and library programs to the Asia Pacific region, and at the same time, bringing Asian eContent as well as bibliographic records and library holdings information to OCLC for sharing with other libraries worldwide. More than 2,300 libraries from the region, primarily in higher education, are members. OCLC Asia Pacific intends to expand the member base in the region through partnerships with libraries, museums, publishers and library suppliers. The goal is to support library cooperation at the country and regional level and to link these country and regional cooperatives into the OCLC Global Cooperative. OCLC Asia Pacific covers the territory west of Hawaii, ranging from China, Korea and Japan in the north to Australia and New Zealand in the south, and Pakistan to the west.

OCLC Asia Pacific is based at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. OCLC Asia Pacific opened its first local office in Beijing, China, on July 20, 2007, with four local staff who have business and technical background to help the cooperative build relationships with key leaders in the country. The division opened a second office in the region in Melbourne, Australia, in 2008, to bring the cooperative’s programs and services to libraries in Australia/New Zealand.