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Overview

WorldCat Collection Analysis gives you the power to view your entire collection and how it's used at a glance. It illustrates your collection, and compares it to other institutions' collections (both peer institutions and aspirational institutions), and all of WorldCat. The derived data can inform your decisions for acquisitions, digitization projects and weeding, and can assist in program assessment and accreditation. WorldCat Collection Analysis builds on the investment you've already made by using your institution's holdings in WorldCat. It lets you see exactly what makes your institution's collections unique—with the power of 9,000 fellow member libraries, archives, museums and historical societies throughout the world to support your findings.

Information professionals are always looking to make the most of materials acquisitions budgets. Yet acquiring the information needed to make informed purchasing decisions—knowing what you already have and what you need across subject areas, formats and languages—as well as how those titles are being circulated—can be a complicated and labor-intensive undertaking.

WorldCat Collection Analysis makes quick work of this task by leveraging existing information about your holdings in the WorldCat database. You can review your own collection, compare it against peer institutions, or compare it to all the holdings in WorldCat to determine strengths, gaps and collection overlaps. You can identify items unique to your institution and evaluate how your collection is being used by examining ILL and circulation usage statistics. Available through the OCLC FirstSearch service, WorldCat Collection Analysis is a Web-based tool that allows you to request and review reports as often as needed. There's no software to install, and reports are ready to use.

The WorldCat Collection Analysis service is immediately available to all institutions that maintain holdings in WorldCat. You can analyze any collection regardless of the type of materials, library or institution, or integrated library system used. An affordable, annual subscription and unlimited report usage give you valuable insight at a predictable price.

View and assess

Whether you're an academic, public or special library, museum, archive or historical society, or part of a consortium, you can now examine your holdings and assess your collection.

WorldCat Collection Analysis is easy to use, and offers you the flexibility to view your collection in multiple ways. Choose from many parameters, including subject, titles and title counts, language, publication date (e.g., pre-1500 to current year), format (e.g., books, electronic, sound recordings) and audience level (e.g., adult, juvenile).

Even if you use multiple classification schemes—such as Dewey (DDC), Library of Congress (LCC) or National Library of Medicine (NLM)—you can analyze your collection as a single entity. You'll save significant time having one complete view of the collection.

Compare and contrast

See how your collection stacks up against the billion-plus holdings in WorldCat. Help decide what should be digitized, weeded or stored remotely. Only WorldCat Collection Analysis lets you evaluate your collection against all the holdings in WorldCat, or up to ten peer institutions; or lets you create one-to-one comparisons (with the other institution's permission), regardless of whether they also use the service.

Individual subscribers also gain access to valuable ILL data from WorldCat Resource Sharing and the ability to create a Circulation Analysis at no additional charge. This data helps you assess how your collection is being used (or not used) to further inform collection development and management decisions such as capital investment initiatives and grant proposals.

WorldCat Collection Analysis helps group subscribers, too. Until now, there has been no simple way to compare the collections of group member institutions against each other. Now groups can evaluate their members' holdings by subject area.

Predefined groups and authoritative list comparisons, such as Books for College Libraries, Doody's Core Medical Titles, Outstanding Academic Titles, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly and Booklist, offer even more ways to assess your collections.

Regardless of your institution's type, comparison data can better inform your collection development and management activities and provide compelling evidence for funding justification.

Produce detailed reports

Analysis reports are easily generated. Uncomplicated, professional spreadsheets and graphs make it simple to share information with colleagues and administrators. You can also export data to Microsoft Excel or similar programs. WorldCat Collection Analysis is accessed through FirstSearch and doesn't require extensive training.

Address your library's specific needs

Every collection is unique, and so are your collection management needs. Regardless of your institution type or what your collection goals are, the WorldCat Collection Analysis service helps you generate the information you need.

Getting started

When you purchase a new subscription, OCLC offers your institution a one-time retrospective or reclamation batchload at no additional charge. Adding holdings to WorldCat or bringing them up-to-date enables your library or group to more accurately analyze its entire collection.

Electronic books

Expanding your 'e' collection? Now you can compare your collection to all of the eBook holdings in WorldCat. This data can help you determine what's available to complete or complement your eBook and eContent offerings.

Academic libraries

Compare your collection with peer institutions, effectively support accreditation requirements, and build collections for new areas of study by replicating established institutions' collections. Multiple predefined, peer collection comparisons are available, such as the Google 5, the top-20 Association of Research Libraries, the top 10 law schools, top executive MBA programs and many more.

Public libraries and similar institutions

Collection Analysis for public libraries lets you analyze your library's holdings to identify strengths, gaps and usage patterns in order to build a stronger collection. You can evaluate and assess your individual library collection by language, subject, format and audience level to better serve your community's ever-changing information needs and requirements. ILL analysis is included to evaluate borrowing and lending requests, and circulation analysis is also included to enable you to identify what items are circulating and those that are not.

Additionally, you can compare your collection to all of the holdings in WorldCat - the largest database of bibliographic and library information in the world. And with public library-specific Authoritative Lists, you can compare your holdings against lists that include Booklist, Library Journal, School Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly, to further inform your collection development activities.

Groups

Analyze all members' collections for more effective, collaborative collection development.

Museums, archives and historical societies

Compare your collection with thousands of other WorldCat institutions to identify those items your institution uniquely holds. Produce reports that quantify and support funding initiatives.