A commitment to sharing knowledge
Expanding WorldCat together
For more than 40 years, members have built and expanded WorldCat, creating the world’s most comprehensive network of data about library collections and services.
In FY14, WorldCat grew by 18.7 million records and 100.3 million holdings. WorldCat data supports a range of OCLC and partner services, driving efficiency in library management, improving discovery of library collections and increasing the visibility of libraries on the Web.
Shanghai Library, the largest public library in China and one of the largest libraries in the world, takes great pride in meeting the needs of users—local, domestic and global. The library contributed 2 million holdings to WorldCat, including some 770,000 unique bibliographic records, to share its collection worldwide. The contribution enhances the richness and depth of Chinese materials in WorldCat as well as the discoverability of these collections around the world. Since the library added its records to WorldCat, its interlibrary loan and document delivery activity have increased fourfold.
“Being a member enhances our connection with the global library community. WorldCat provides an opportunity not only to share a wider range of resources with more libraries, but also to fully surface our local resources to a worldwide audience, which is imperative for a world-class library.”
Dr. Jianzhong Wu, Director, Shanghai Library, China
The National Library of Jamaica
The National Library of Jamaica wants to share Jamaican heritage, identity and culture with the world. In order to do that, its materials need to be visible and discoverable on the Web—any place in the world, any time of the day. The library became a member in FY14 and began adding records and holdings to WorldCat, enabling its rich collection and library data to be shared with many online services where users go to search. The library contributed more than 50,000 records—20,000 of them unique—and is one of 45 national libraries currently contributing records to WorldCat.
“The dream is for the National Library of Jamaica to be the place of choice online for information about Jamaica, and we are one step closer with WorldCat.”
Winsome Hudson, National Librarian and CEO of the National Library of Jamaica
Continued WorldCat growth
as of June 30, 2014
| New records (FY14) | 18,674,695 |
| Total number of records | 321,590,025 |
| New holdings (FY14) | 100,297,404 |
| Total number of holdings | 2,133,005,376 |
484 languages represented in WorldCat
61% Non-English |
39% English |
Top 50 language contributions
Number of records as of June 30, 2014
- English 125,613,067
- German 41,148,749
- French 29,211,118
- Spanish 14,475,094
- Chinese 9,893,125
- Japanese 9,499,420
- Italian 7,046,484
- Dutch 5,003,950
- Latin 4,205,962
- Russian 4,035,042
- Polish 3,755,337
- Danish 2,973,417
- Portuguese 2,506,125
- Swedish 2,327,034
- Hebrew 2,032,096
- Slovenian 1,963,565
- Arabic 1,543,699
- Czech 1,448,725
- Catalan 930,091
- Finnish 895,436
- Thai 836,319
- Korean 590,240
- Indonesian 589,143
- Turkish 560,879
- Hungarian 490,108
- Norwegian 489,218
- Greek, Modern (1453–) 475,945
- Croatian 467,408
- Serbian 367,079
- Persian 328,131
- Romanian 320,540
- Ukrainian 306,239
- Afrikaans 266,617
- Vietnamese 263,306
- Malay 258,051
- Bulgarian 255,625
- Hindi 255,623
- Yiddish 237,596
- Tamil 225,294
- Frisian 203,526
- Urdu 196,103
- Greek, Ancient (to 1453) 188,827
- Slovak 141,349
- Lithuanian 121,487
- Bengali 119,655
- Sanskrit 93,925
- Basque 92,792
- Icelandic 87,747
- Welsh 85,125
- Armenian 80,678
Top 10 lending libraries
Items lent FY14
| Minitex | 60,930 |
| The University of Chicago | 48,485 |
| University of Texas at Austin | 39,427 |
| University of Michigan | 37,086 |
| Baylor University | 36,119 |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | 35,826 |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison | 34,157 |
| Indiana University | 33,916 |
| Pennsylvania State University | 33,126 |
| The Ohio State University | 32,592 |
Top 10 online original catalogers
Original records added FY14
| University of Hong Kong | 69,905 |
| National Central Library (Taiwan) | 36,891 |
| Peabody Essex Museum | 29,066 |
| National Library Board, Singapore | 24,947 |
| National Taiwan University | 19,891 |
| National Agriculture Library | 16,920 |
| Stanford University Library | 15,024 |
| University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | 13,642 |
| New York Public Library | 12,600 |
| The Ohio State University | 11,722 |
WorldCat community maintenance
Member libraries voluntarily improve and upgrade WorldCat master bibliographic records in these ongoing quality programs.
| Records | |
| Expert Community | 306,491 |
| Database enrichment | 293,471 |
| Minimal-level upgrade | 223,666 |
| Enhance regular | 146,107 |
| Enhance national | 50,001 |
| CONSER authentication | 10,513 |
| CONSER maintenance | 49,934 |
| Total | 1,080,183 |
Cover photo: The André Malraux Media Library, France ©Philippe Stirnweiss