The addition of Sudoc records in WorldCat, planned for the first quarter of 2010, will increase visibility of collections from the French academic world.

In addition to the valuable worldwide, online visibility of their records, participating in WorldCat brings the Sudoc libraries more benefits. "Thanks to their contribution, the libraries become OCLC members," says Raymond Bérard, director of the ABES, "and as such they can, for example, use the WorldCat API to develop their own specific applications. Further, as OCLC members, these Sudoc libraries can vote on a regional level in the OCLC governance structure."

"We are very pleased that ABES has agreed to contribute these records to WorldCat," says Rein van Charldorp, managing director of OCLC in Europe, Middle East and Africa. "OCLC has been working with ABES for more than 10 years now and this further extension of our cooperation is the logical next step. The worldwide library community will benefit significantly from the enrichment of WorldCat with the Sudoc titles."

The agreement to load Sudoc records into WorldCat follows that of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), which signed a similar agreement in June of this year. Since 2002, ABES has been cataloguing with Sudoc, which is based on OCLC's Central Bibliographic System (CBS). Loading CBS records into WorldCat makes possible the option for real-time updates from CBS into WorldCat, via SRU update, which is currently being used effectively for the Dutch union catalogue and the union catalogue of Australia.

With Sudoc records in the WorldCat database, these libraries are able to use other useful and efficient tools such as WorldCat Collection Analysis, which allows libraries to compare their collections with those of peer libraries. Visit the OCLC Web site to find more learn more about WorldCat.

About ABES
ABES (Agence Bibliographique de l'Enseignement Supérieur) is the agency in charge of Sudoc (Système Universitaire de documentation), the Library Union Catalogue for the academic, specialist and Higher Education in France. ABES was created in 1994 with the aim of implementing Sudoc, which was launched in 2001 and has proved very successful, representing in excess of 9 million records of 1,100 libraries and their 28 million holdings. ABES received over 34 million queries in 2008, which makes Sudoc a premier one-stop point for supporting teaching and research via a freely available integrated catalogue.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library service and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library management and Web services to 71,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library materials. Search WorldCat.org on the Web.  For more information, visit the OCLC Web site.

With the number of book formats multiplying and the amount of digital content growing rapidly, the metadata required to support the discovery, sale, and use of content by a global audience is increasing exponentially. At the same time, economic pressures on all stakeholders in the supply chain—from publishers to wholesalers to booksellers to metadata suppliers and to librarians—present greater challenges for providing quality and comprehensive metadata at every point in the cycle.

Through interviews with over 30 industry representatives, Luther has created a book metadata exchange map illustrating the workflow and metadata exchange and has identified opportunities for eliminating redundancies and making the entire process more economical.

"The ability to efficiently transmit and correctly display metadata that supports decisions to acquire books has made the underlying structure and exchange of metadata even more important to the success of the publisher supply chain and libraries," explained Luther.

The white paper was commissioned by NISO and OCLC as a follow-up to the Symposium for Publishers and Librarians held by OCLC on March 18-19, 2009 to discuss book metadata. Both organizations share the vision of an environment where data can be exchanged seamlessly between different systems and both are focused on reducing the costs of this exchange for all participants in the supply chain of data and content.

"The white paper illustrates how effectively both publishers and libraries have implemented their respective standards of ONIX for Books and MARC, but also shows how silos have grown up around the two standards," states Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. "There are definite opportunities for breaking down these silos and both communities are eager to find better methods for interoperability and streamlining their operations."

"Efficiently and effectively reusing metadata from publishers supports the continued relevance and success of library bibliographic control going forward," said Karen Calhoun, Vice President, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services. "It is important that libraries, publishers, and metadata suppliers collaborate in the ongoing development and evolution of best practices and standards in support of Web-scale services."

"Current publisher and library workflows and methodologies for metadata creation and maintenance are not sustainable. It is crucial to the future of publishers and libraries that we move toward collaborative, creative, and networked use of publisher and library metadata for the benefit of multiple user communities," said Renee Register, Senior Product Manager, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services.

NISO and OCLC plan to hold ongoing events to continue the dialog among publishers, librarians, and metadata suppliers. Specific actions identified in the report will be pursued with the establishment of working groups to develop recommended practices or standards as needed.

Streamlining Book Metadata Workflow is available on the NISO Web site at www.niso.org/publications/white_papers/. Information about the Symposium for Publishers and Librarians is available on the OCLC Web site at www.oclc.org/publisher-symposium/.

About NISO
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). More information about NISO is available on its website: www.niso.org. For more information please contact NISO on (301) 654-2512 or via email on nisohq@niso.org.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library service and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library management and Web services to 71,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library materials. Search WorldCat.org on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

The WorldCat Mobile pilot allows users to search for and find books and other materials available in libraries near them through a Web application they can access from a PDA or smartphone.

Based on WorldCat.org, the world's largest online resource for finding information in libraries, the pilot has already proved a huge success in the U.S. and Canada. Thanks to advanced global positioning capabilities found in most mobiles, WorldCat Mobile pilot users in these countries will be able to find local library materials, if the library in question has loaded records in WorldCat, no matter where they happen to be. Users can even get a Google Maps view of the library location along with detailed driving instructions if the mobile device supports the application.

"People are using their mobile phones today as if they were hand-held computers," said Cindy Cunningham, OCLC Director of Partner Programs. "OCLC wants to make sure that libraries are where people are seeking information. The WorldCat Mobile pilot will help us to gauge the kind of interest people have in accessing library information from their mobile phones—wherever they may be."

Created in collaboration with Boopsie, Inc., a U.S.-based provider of software for mobile devices, the WorldCat Mobile pilot is a downloadable application that supports many devices, including Nokia, Blackberry and iPhone.

As this is a pilot, OCLC are keen to receive feedback from European users as to their experiences with the service. Anyone wishing to offer such comments can do so by emailing WorldCatMobilePilot@oclc.org.

Download the application to your mobile device at www.worldcat.org/m/.

About Boopsie, Inc.
Based in Laguna Beach, California, the Boopsie Mobile Find Platform was built to leverage the latest capabilities of mobile phones.  The company’s patent-pending technology uses a Smart Prefix™ text entry system to quickly find exactly what users are seeking.  For content publishers, Boopsie provides a brand-friendly environment that creates mobile ready versions of their Web offerings in real time.  For more information, visit:  www.boopsie.com/.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library service and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloguing, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library management and Web services to 69,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories.  OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library materials.  Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org.  For more information about OCLC, visit www.oclc.org.

By mid-2005 when WorldCat migrated to its new platform, sixteen runs through WorldCat had been completed, resulting in the elimination of a total of 1.6 million duplicate records.

In 2005, a project was started to re-invent the DDR software to work in the new environment and to expand its capabilities to deal with all types of bibliographic records.  This large multi-year project is now bearing fruit.  Great improvements to our matching software, which are a key component of the new DDR, have regularly been incorporated into the batchloading process.  This helps bring both DDR and batchloading processes into alignment as never before in dealing with the problem of duplicate records in WorldCat.

In May 2009, the new software was put into production following rigorous planning, development, and testing.  In addition to its ability to deal with continuing resources, scores, sound recordings, visual materials, maps, and electronic resources, as well as books, this new DDR is much more sophisticated than its predecessor in its power to distinguish legitimate matches from incorrect ones.  It also has the flexibility to allow selection of certain categories of bibliographic records to target for deduplication.  Processing of small subsets of WorldCat against the live database has begun.  A full pass through the WorldCat database will begin later in 2009.

Having the new DDR software in production will result in the merging of a larger number of bibliographic records. Regular removal of duplicates will provide a better WorldCat for all its users.

The event was deemed very successful by participants and organizers alike. In an interesting twist for the audience of highly-networked informational professionals, the Mashathon reconfirmed the importance of face-to-face meetings, even in today’s online environment.

"I had a great time, learned a lot and met lots of interesting people," tweets Andreas Neumann of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Germany which goes by bsb_it_andi on Twitter. Fellow participants echoed the sentiment in similar tweets and event evaluations.

Held at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the WorldCat Mashathon attracted more than 40 participants from Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States who represented all types of libraries and cultural institutions. The goal of the event was twofold: one was to raise awareness of the WorldCat Search API and related Web Services freely available from OCLC and other library-related organizations. The equally important second goal was to help developers connect with fellow developers and other technology-minded thinkers to work on shared solutions to similar situations or challenges within their respective settings.

Outcomes from the two days typically included a range of mash-ups, apps and new creative ideas to implement in developers' home library catalogues. Examples of successful projects included:

• WorldCat World Tour—an app that finds artists' albums through the WorldCat Search API and uses a UK-based streaming music service to play the musical tracks online. (Hear the developer present at www.youtube.com.)
• WorldCat Identities widgets—4 small blocks of functionality that build on each other to turn a Dutch catalogue ppn number into an OCLC number, return author names, citations and related works (subject headings) in XML and JSON. (Try the demo at www.worldcatdoor.org.)
• Also available at a WorldCat Library—a new sidebar in the Wageningen UR Library Catalogue that uses the WorldCat Search API and the WorldCat Registry OpenURL Gateway to display a location-sensitive listing for other WorldCat libraries who also hold the item. (See it in action at library.wur.nl.)

The format of the Mashathon included a mix of short prepared presentations and spontaneous small break-out groups. A mix of seasoned and early career professionals made for a rich environment for creative innovation and fresh approaches. As one attendee explained, "There were three people in the world that had experience with combining SOLR and SRU—because of this event we were able to connect this expertise together very quickly."

Videos, photos and tweets from the event may be found at the tags #masheu09 and #mashathon on YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.

Mashathon organisers are enthusiastic about the success of the event series.

"This is such a great way to bring the library development community together," explained Roy Tennant, one of the founders of the OCLC Developer Network. "We are so pleased with the creativity of the implementations and expect the tools created these two days to continue delivering long-term value for libraries and library users around the world."

Future mashathons will be announced on the OCLC Developer Network blog.

Qualifying organisations who are interested in requesting the WorldCat Search API access can contact OCLC through the WorldCat Affiliate account form.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library service and research organisation that has provided computer-based cataloguing, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library management and Web services to over 70,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world's richest online resource for finding library materials. WorldCat.org is a Web destination with search and social networking features that allow information seekers to discover, localize and personalize content from a library's collections and those of more than 10,000 WorldCat libraries globally. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

The Canadian Subject Headings (CSH) list is the 11th controlled vocabulary to be included in the OCLC Terminologies Service, which provides access to multiple thesauri to help librarians create consistent metadata for library, museum or archive collections.

CSH is an English-language vocabulary that has been created specifically for the Canadian context, intended to align with and supplement Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Library and Archives Canada develops and maintains this list, and uses it—along with LCSH and Université Laval’s Répertoire de vedettes-matière—to provide subject headings for bibliographic records in Canadiana, the national bibliography and in the AMICUS database. CSH is available online at Library and Archives Canada’s Web site.

This new report summarizes the findings of research conducted by OCLC on what constitutes quality in library online catalogs from both end users’ and librarians’ points of view.

Key findings:

• The end user’s experience of the delivery of wanted items is as important, if not more important, than his or her discovery experience.
• End users rely on and expect enhanced content including summaries/abstracts and tables of contents.
• An advanced search option (supporting fielded searching) and facets help end users refine searches, navigate, browse and manage large result sets.
• Important differences exist between the catalog data quality priorities of end users and those who work in libraries.
• Librarians and library staff, like end users, approach catalogs and catalog data purposefully. End users generally want to find and obtain needed information; librarians and library staff generally have work responsibilities to carry out. The work roles of librarians and staff influence their data quality preferences.
• Librarians’ choice of data quality enhancements reflects their understanding of the importance of accurate, structured data in the catalog.

Howard Karno Books specializes in new, out-of-print, rare, and original materials about Latin America, including Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Brazil, the Hispanic United States and Spain and Portugal.  Headquarters is located in California with offices and employees throughout the regions. 

They provide full library services in all subjects that include: approval plans, standing orders, serial subscriptions, new-title email notification, monographic orders, appraisals, search services, full cataloging.  Shelf-ready processing is expected to be available by the middle of 2009.  Additionally, they are a leading provider of materials in the arts, architecture and cinema from Latin America.

Individualized profiles are tailored to the needs of each client. 

Howard Karno Books, Inc. was founded in 1972 and is a member of the SALALM (Seminar for the Acquisitions of Latin American Materials; ARLIS, NA (Art and Research Libraries of North America); ABAA (Antiquarian Book Dealers Association of America and the ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers).

For more information on Howard Karno Books, Inc. see: http://www.karnobooks.com/.

When a Karno Books record (OCLC symbol H7K) is added or matched to WorldCat, a 938 field is added to the MARC record that contains the vendor code KARN. This code is indexed; vendor records are searchable in Connexion using the vendor index (Vendor (vn:) in the dropdown menu). Some examples of the records added to WorldCat from Karno Books re OCLC numbers: #271981717, # 263302198. Examples of records matched are: # 228416840, # 248400849.

See a list of all partners contributing records through the Vendor Record Contribution Program.

D.K. Agencies, founded in 1968, are booksellers and subscription agents handling publications originating from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and serving university, research and public libraries around the world. They supply books in English, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Hindi and other vernacular languages of India (Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Urdu, etc.) through firm orders and blanket orders/approval plans.

Having been involved in the cataloging of Indian books for over 35 years, D.K. Agencies offer the largest database of Indian books. Recently, they have started adding tag 880 to the MARC records in the original scripts of all the major Indian languages. They also provide retrospective conversion services to libraries.

When a D.K. Agencies record (OCLC symbol DKAGE) is added or matched to WorldCat, a 938 field is added to the MARC record that contains the vendor code DKAP. This code is indexed; vendor records are searchable in Connexion using the vendor index (Vendor (vn:) in the dropdown menu). Some examples of the records added to WorldCat from D.K. are OCLC numbers: #269249501, #277280429, and #286356742. Examples of records matched are: #244293471, #247448076, and #214280503.

For information about D.K. Agencies, visit their Web site at: http://www.dkagencies.com/.

See a list of all partners contributing records through the Vendor Record Contribution Program.

Playaway is the only format of audiobook that does not require a separate player, so it comes ready-to-listen, without the need for a certain type of player or advanced technical know-how. Additionally, Playaway allows the listener to control the speed of the narrator's voice and automatically remembers where you left off when you power down. Playaway offers titles in English, Spanish and French.

Learn more about Findaway World.

View all participants of OCLC's Vendor Record Contribution Program.