WorldCat
From Freepedia
WorldCat is the world's largest bibliographic database, the merged catalogs of over 50,000 OCLC member libraries in over 90 countries. Built and maintained collectively by librarians, WorldCat itself is not an OCLC service that is purchased, but rather provides the foundation for many OCLC services. The database was created in 1971; as of 2005, it contains some 58 million records, referencing books in more than 360 languages.
Contents |
How it works
The complete WorldCat database cannot be searched for free on the internet. Instead, the user needs to go through a library that has purchased a FirstSearch subscription from OCLC. The database provides complete bibliographic reference information for given books, including links to those member libraries that hold the item, optionally sorted by geographical distance.
When trying to locate a book in a nearby library, it is advisable to take advantage of the search feature "Search for versions with the same title and author", since each edition of a book has its own database entry. Frequently, one even finds duplicate entries for the same unique identifier (i.e. ISBN, ISSN, etc.) This occurs when library catalogers contribute their own records for materials rather than adding their holdings to the existing record, often the result of erred searching.
Open WorldCat
In the summer of 2003 OCLC started the Open WorldCat program. This program makes abbreviated versions of a subset of the WorldCat records available to Web users on popular Internet search sites (like Yahoo! and Google by typing "find in a library: " including the double quotes before your search terms) as well as on selected bibliographic and bookselling sites. These sites pay OCLC for the privilege.
In October of 2004, due to the success of this program, WorldCat opened their entire collection of records to public search engines.
No Individual Records
Unlike Eureka, WorldCat does not display individual library records for a particular search item. While the Library of Congress record is usually displayed, it is important to note that many libraries continue to use other call number systems (such as the Dewey Decimal System). As a result, in order to obtain the call number necessary to find a particular item in a given library, it is often necessary to look at the individual library's OPAC. While WorldCat often provides a link to the OPACs for libraries that possess a given item, this is not always the case.
