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Following a successful six month trial, the Bavarian State Library (BSB) has confirmed its continued participation in OCLC’s WorldCat Resource Sharing network.

While initially a desire to share their unique collection of holdings with people around the world prompted the trial, the subsequent ease and reach of the service ensured BSB’s ongoing use.  Often complications including payment issues can prove prohibitive to the international ILL activities of libraries. By subscribing to features such as Integrated Fee Management (IFM) through WorldCat Resource Sharing the BSB were able to remove such barriers; simplifying and consolidating the whole ILL process for both lender and borrower. 

In only six months the number of requests submitted via WorldCat to the BSB averaged 2,000 per month, 50% of which were positively filled. The majority of enquiries (around two thirds) were for copies of articles, with the remainder coming from book loans.  While the bulk of inquiries originated from the U.S., in all a total of 16,000 requests were received by the BSB between March and December 2009 from libraries in 25 countries.

In response to requests from the cataloging community, OCLC introduced the Expert Community Experiment, which enables cataloging members to make more changes to WorldCat records. The Experiment began in February 2009 and ran for six months, and the increased capabilities introduced as part of the program, remain available to members.   

Here is your opportunity to get a first glimpse at the OCLC events that will be taking place.