WorldCat Publisher Pages

The WorldCat Publisher Pages prototype presents a set of Web pages that provide a visual representation of publishers’ output, as reflected in the WorldCat^TM database. Generating publisher relationships cannot be entirely automated. The data are current as of March 2010. At this time we have no plans to update the data.

The Publisher Pages prototype is an outgrowth of the OCLC Publisher Name Authority File, as well as the OCLC WorldMap and the OCLC Audience Level activities.

Background

A number of OCLC Research activities have developed around the idea of creating groups of web pages in which WorldCat data are aggregated to add value and expose new relationships.

Impact

WorldCat Publisher Pages repurposes results from the OCLC WorldMap and Audience Level prototypes to create rich, publicly available portraits of leading worldwide publishers identified in the Publisher Name Authority File.

Prototype description

The WorldCat Publisher Pages prototype allows users to select a major publisher, and then to explore its publication history as reflected in the WorldCat database. Users can select a publisher either from a cloud, or via search. The Pages represent more than 1800 publishing entities (including imprints), including the largest publishers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, China, the Russian Federation, Spain, Finland, Australia, Taiwan, and New Zealand.

For each publisher, WorldCat Publisher Pages presents an overview of the organization’s "footprint" in WorldCat, including:

An authoritative name for the publisher (in most cases, the form either used by the Library of Congress or by Bowker’s Books in Print),
Its headquarters location,
A tag cloud of the authors most associated with the publisher,
A tag cloud of the languages for the publisher’s books,
A tag cloud of the subjects in which it has published,
Maps showing where the publisher’s books have originated and where they are held,
Graphics representing the publishers’ publication history and OCLC Audience Level, and
A complete interactive chart of the larger organization to which the publisher or imprint belongs.

The entire display is interactive, with many dynamic links to other Publisher Pages, to WorldCat Identities, or to a sample of the publisher’s actual output in WorldCat.

Let us know what you're thinking!

Because this is a research prototype, we are particularly interested in your feedback. Click on the "Send us your ideas" link to contact us.

Outputs

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Timothy J. Dickey. 2008. "Data Mining, Advanced Collection Analysis, and Publisher Profiles: An Update on the OCLC Publisher Name Authority File." Presentation given at the XXVIII Annual Charleston Conference, 7 November 2008, Charleston, South Carolina (USA). Available online at: http://www.oclc.org/research/presentations/connaway/charleston2008.ppt (.ppt: 761K/33 slides).
Lynn Silipigni Connaway, and Timothy J. Dickey. 2008. "Beyond data mining: Delivering the next generation of service from library data." Presented on panel, "Transforming Data into Services: Delivering the Next Generation of User-Oriented Collections and Services" at the American Society for Information Science & Technology 2008 Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH, October 28, 2008.
Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Akeisha Heard. 2005. "Publisher Name Authority Project: An Attempt to Enhance Data Mining for Collection Analysis & Comparison." Presentation given at the XXV Annual Charleston Conference, 4 November 2005, Charleston, South Carolina (USA). Available online at: http://www.oclc.org/research/presentations/connaway/charleston2005.ppt (.ppt:183K/39slides).
Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Akeisha Heard. 2005. "Publisher Name Authority Project: An Attempt to Enhance Data Mining for Collection Analysis & Comparison, A Selective Bibliography." Available online at: http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/publisherns/bibliography.pdf (.pdf: 22K/3 pp.).