A brief history of WorldCat
| 1971 | The first bibliographic records are added to the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) by staff at the Alden Library at Ohio University |
|---|---|
| 1974 | The CONSER (Cooperative ONline SERials) program begins to build a database of authoritative serials records |
| 1979 | The OLUC grows to 5 million bibliographic records; OCLC has participating libraries in all 50 US states |
| 1983 | The Enhance Program begins and allows qualified libraries to add information to bibliographic records and to correct them in the OLUC |
| 1989 | The OLUC grows to 20 million bibliographic records |
| 1996 | The OLUC is renamed to WorldCat |
| 2005 | The 1 billionth library holding is added to WorldCat |
| 2006 | The WorldCat.org search box goes live, offering access to WorldCat to online information seekers |
| 2008 | WorldCat grows to 100 million bibliographic records, and for the first time, its non-English record content exceeds its English-language record content |
| 2010 | WorldCat grows to 200 million bibliographic records |
| 2011 | WorldCat becomes the global data hub for the OCLC WorldShare Platform |
| 2012 | OCLC releases WorldCat linked data to increase both innovation around library metadata and the visibility of libraries on the Web |