Transforming WorldCat

Since 1971, OCLC had built and maintained WorldCat on its own proprietary system that it had developed in-house and continuously modified and updated over some 30 years. In 2001, however, we began a major project to move WorldCat to a new platform based on hardware and licensed software (Oracle database technology) with widespread industry adoption. This was an important step in our announced strategy to evolve WorldCat beyond bibliography into a globally networked, Web-based information resource that would also provide links to digital objects in other knowledge repositories.

The new WorldCat platform will support additional standards such as Dublin Core and IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Unicode. The latter will enable WorldCat to provide information in multiple character sets. The new WorldCat will enable users to access abstracts, full text, images and sound files, as well as bibliographic and location information.

This April, we moved the OCLC FirstSearch service to the new technological platform. You can read more about this significant milestone on page 6 of this Newsletter. The migration of OCLC services to the new platform is on schedule for completion in 2005. In the meantime, WorldCat is being transformed with each new installation and enhancement. Let me review a few of the significant advances since 2000.

2001: The face of WorldCat on FirstSearch changes with colorful icons, book cover images, tables of contents and author reviews.

2002: OCLC Connexion, a new online cataloging service, provides libraries with access to WorldCat, linked authority control, automated classification and the ability to build subject guides.

2003: The Open WorldCat pilot studies the feasibility of making WorldCat and library holdings and catalogs available to the general public on the open Web through a variety of services such as Abebooks, Alibris, Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), BookPage and HCI Bibliography, as well as search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Search.

2004: WorldCat links to images in special collections as a result of metadata harvesting from registered library sites.

The transformation continues with a new service for searching the collections of all the institutions in a group through holdings set in WorldCat in FirstSearch. For example, the Transportation Libraries group catalog brings together resources from 19 geographically dispersed transportation libraries to provide a single, unified view of their collections. Since the group catalog is a Web-based service, the institutions did not have to invest in hardware or software to provide their users with this union catalog. Other groups that have taken advantage of this unique service are the subject-based Military Education and Research Library Network, the multitype consortia of institutions in the state of Florida, the public libraries in Missouri and, in the fall of 2004, multitype libraries in the state of Montana.

Amidst all this change, WorldCat continues to be a remarkable platform for library cooperation. 2004 marks the 25th anniversary of the OCLC Interlibrary Loan service, and WorldCat has supported more than 136 million online interlibrary loans since 1979. WorldCat also keeps growing, with a new record going in every 12 seconds. This year, the rate has accelerated-Columbus Metropolitan Library input the 54 millionth record in January, and Geauga County (Ohio) Public Library input the 55 millionth in April.

About two years from now, we will hit a very big number-1,000,000,000 location listings in WorldCat-that's one billion symbols of library cooperation. With a new technological platform, innovative services and a growing worldwide membership, the OCLC cooperative will indeed have something extraordinary to celebrate!

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