OCLC makes OAIster records available through WorldCat.org
The University of Michigan and OCLC announced that they have successfully transitioned the OAIster database to OCLC to ensure continued public access to open-archive collections, and to expand the visibility of these collections to millions of information seekers through OCLC services.
OAIster records are now fully accessible through WorldCat.org, and will be included in WorldCat.org search results along with records from thousands of libraries worldwide that add their holdings to WorldCat. OCLC plans to release a freely accessible, discrete view of the OAIster records in January 2010 through a URL specific to OAIster. OAIster records will also continue to be available on the OCLC FirstSearch service to Base Package subscribers, providing another valuable access point for this rich database and a complement to other FirstSearch databases. OCLC will continue to develop and enhance access to open archive content.
OAIster is a union catalogue of digital resources hosted at the University of Michigan since 2002. Launched with grant support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, OAIster was developed to test the feasibility of building a portal to open archive collections using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). OAIster has grown to become one of the world's largest aggregations of records pointing to open archive collections with more than 23 million records contributed by over 1,100 organizations worldwide.