WorldCat real-time synchronisation with Dutch union catalogue proves big success
In February 2008, the Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus (NCC: the Dutch Union Catalogue) started updating WorldCat in real time. As Dutch librarians create new bibliographic records and add new holdings to new and existing records in the NCC, WorldCat is simultaneously and automatically updating behind the scenes. Thus, all new data is visible in WorldCat within seconds, even though it is being entered into an entirely separate system. Once in WorldCat the data is exposed to a global audience via the freely available site WorldCat.org. The data is also formatted and made available for general harvesting and is picked up in particular by Google Book Search and other major sites such as Facebook. Many sites, including an increasing number of blog sites have downloaded the WorldCat search box allowing direct searching from their pages. Other sites are accessing WorldCat via their own programs using the WorldCat API (Application Program Interface).
SRU record update is a standard designed specifically for updating union catalogues. The standard permits timely update, a mechanism for the feedback of information, including errors (so that they can be fixed by the contributors themselves) and alignment identifiers. SRU record update also ensures comprehensiveness as it eliminates the risk of missed batches and provides timely validation errors to minimize the number of missing erroneous records.
In 5 months of operation of SRU update, the NCC has added to WorldCat more than 1.5 million holdings and 230,000 bibliographic records with a time between appearance in one catalogue and appearance in the other averaging less than 5 seconds. On average, between 1800 and 2000 transactions per day are sent from the NCC to WorldCat.
Following the NCC success, a second release of the software was implemented on 14th July 2008, extending the service to include enhanced security, a mechanism for the deletion of holdings and a validation only routine. The validation only routine serves as a valuable testing tool for both libraries and OCLC developers alike. The service is now ready for further implementations. The second installation will be the Libraries Australia service later this year.