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Life 2.0: The evolution of our digital DNA Library Spotlight: Architecture as advocacy Tips & Tricks: Search Engine Optimization basics Labs: OCLC pilots WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry New life for special collections Research: Make room for the Millennials Download this issue (4.5 MB pdf)
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Fiscal 2008: A banner year for library cooperationI want to share a few numbers with you to put the power of library cooperation in perspective. The 12 months that ended June 30, 2008 will go down as a banner year for the OCLC cooperative. Libraries from around the world cataloged more items, added more records to WorldCat and arranged more interlibrary loans on OCLC than ever before. CatalogingIndividual catalogers cataloged 32.4 million items on OCLC during the year. OCLC also batch processed some 212.1 million records previously cataloged by global member institutions, adding their unique records and holdings to WorldCat. Total items cataloged in fiscal 2008 was 244.5 million, which was a 42 percent increase over fiscal 2007. WorldCat grew by over 22.2 million records, which was another new high in total records. This 19 percent increase over the previous year, however, was not as dramatic as what happened two years ago, when the number of records added to WorldCat leaped from 9.3 million to 18.7, an increase of over 100 percent. At June 30, 2008, there were approximately 108 million bibliographic records in WorldCat. The 100 millionth record was entered on April 1, 2008 by the University of Washington Libraries. 50 million in six yearsIt’s interesting to note that it took the OCLC cooperative 31 years, from 1971 to 2002, to get to 50 million records. Libraries have since added 50 million more in just six years! The number of holdings symbols attached to records in WorldCat grew by 150 million, compared to 70.8 million in fiscal 2007. There are now 1.34 billion location listings in the database. What accounts for this dramatic growth? First, our new technological platform has Unicode capabilities and supports 12 language scripts, which makes it practicable for an increasing number of international organizations to merge their national union catalogs or other large files with WorldCat via automated, batch processes. Second, we have improved our batchloading capabilities. Just two years ago, we were processing about 500,000 records daily. Now, we are handling more than 2 million records a day in such tasks as updating holdings for an individual library so that it can participate in a group catalog or implement WorldCat Local. We are working on even more improvements in batchloading to accommodate increased demand from libraries as we move ahead with new services that will support access to the entire library collection of print, licensed and digital materials. As a result of this growth, the language composition of WorldCat has changed over the past decade, with the percentage of records in languages other than English going from 38 percent in 1998 to slightly over 50 percent in 2008. WorldCat is truly a global resource! Interlibrary loansThe number of online interlibrary loans arranged through OCLC Resource Sharing surpassed the 10 million mark in fiscal 2008. Since the system was introduced in 1979, the number of online interlibrary loans has increased annually. Through fiscal 2008, more than 171.1 million interlibrary loans were accomplished. That is a lot of resource sharing! Going forwardClearly, library cooperation continues to generate powerful network effects. The more libraries connected, the more records added, the more resources shared—the more value for everyone, especially the library users searching via WorldCat.org or coming into a library collection from the open Web via Google or Yahoo! You will see us moving ahead over the next year with new services and programs, as we connect more libraries and generate new value for all participants in the OCLC cooperative.
Jay Jordan |
