RERO agrees to add 4.8 million records to WorldCat from network of libraries in Western Switzerland

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 18 December 2009—RERO, the Library Network of Western Switzerland, has agreed to contribute more than 4.8 million records for mainly French-, English- and German-language materials to WorldCat, and OCLC will provide import capabilities for cooperative cataloging for RERO libraries along with increased visibility of the libraries' collections on the Web.

The agreement is effective January 1, 2010 and RERO records will be added in the first half of 2010.

"Thanks to this contribution, RERO and its partner libraries will have global visibility that will not only add value to their collections but also to their work and collaborative efforts," said Christian Pilloud, President of the RERO Executive Board.

"The content richness of WorldCat is attractive to our libraries, especially where it concerns the original language records," said Mrs. Marylène Micheloud, RERO Director. "This agreement gives our partner libraries the opportunity to optimize the copy cataloging operations by accessing this immense resource that is WorldCat."

Karen Calhoun, Vice President, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services, met with representatives of RERO last year in Switzerland.

"I was delighted to have the chance to participate in discussions with the RERO leadership about WorldCat, which will be greatly enriched by representing the valuable collections of over 200 Swiss libraries including those serving the Romandy universities," said Ms. Calhoun. "French-speaking citizens, students and researchers around the world will find the addition of the RERO union catalogue particularly useful."

WorldCat is the world's largest database of bibliographic information built continuously by libraries around the world since 1971. Each record in the WorldCat database contains a bibliographic description of a single item or work and a list of institutions that hold the item. The institutions share these records, using them to create local catalogs, arrange interlibrary loans and conduct reference work. Libraries contribute records for items not found in WorldCat using the OCLC shared cataloging system.

There are now more than 165 million records in WorldCat spanning five millennia of recorded knowledge, from about 4800 B.C. to the present. This unique database of information encompasses records in eight formats—books, serials, sound recordings, musical scores, maps, visual materials, mixed materials and computer files. Like the knowledge it describes, WorldCat grows steadily. Every second, library members add seven records to WorldCat.

This is the third major addition of records for French language materials to WorldCat in recent months. OCLC announced in June that the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) was adding 13.2 million records to WorldCat. In September, ABES (l’Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement Supérieur) signed an agreement to add 9 million records from Système Universitaire de documentation (Sudoc), the cataloguing system for French academic libraries managed by ABES, into WorldCat.

The Library Network of Western Switzerland, RERO, an acronym of REseau ROmand, was established in 1985 under the auspices of the University Conference of Western Switzerland. Today, RERO is a group of 215 university, heritage, special and public libraries of the cantons Geneva, Vaud, Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Jura and Valais, as well as of the libraries of Federal Institutions.

RERO maintains a union catalog of about 4.8 million records and 10 million holdings to serve some 50,000 students of the academic Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Fribourg and Neuchâtel, and the University of Applied Sciences, and about 250,000 library patrons. All libraries are using the same ILS in a consortia architecture. The network aims to share resources and competences, to develop joint projects and to provide services to library members. The union catalog (http://opac.rero.ch), the digital library (http://doc.rero.ch ) and the metacatalog (http://meta.rero.ch) are successful results of this cooperation. For more information, visit www.rero.ch.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in over 112 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC Web site.

Find out more about OCLC

OCLC, WorldCat and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.