WorldCat,Open WorldCat, & the California Libraries Catalog

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1 WorldCat,Open WorldCat, & the California Libraries Catalog Susan Kantor-Horning Electronic Resources Specialist Contra Costa County Library Commission May 25, 2006

2 WorldCat and Open WorldCat Worldwide Union Catalog with over 61 million records created and maintained collectively by over 9,000 member libraries. More than 1 billion copies of titles held by libraries are listed inworldcat. Open WorldCat is a subset and contains approximately 5 million of the most frequently used records that are being loaded into search engines including Yahoo! and Google.

3 California Libraries Catalog - Funded by LSTA grant CalCat State Library in conjunction with OCLC and Califa, embarked on a project to create a union catalog for the State (2005). CalCatis a subset of WorldCat and contains 15.8 million records, combines holdings of 1221 multi-type California libraries. For more information:

4 How the Project Works Public libraries receive subscriptions to FirstSearch for WorldCat. Public libraries update records in OCLC. Public Libraries not in OCLC can add records. Records in CalCat/available in Google/Yahoo via Open WorldCat.

5 California Libraries Catalog Accessible from CARLWeb and database pages. View holdings of our library and others in the region and throughout the State.

6 Open WorldCat Primary goal of OpenWorldCatis to connect Web searchers to library collections. Only libraries with a subscription to WorldCat (FirstSearch) will have their holdings displayed in Open WorldCat. Open WorldCat was initially free (began as a pilot program in 2003); OCLC required libraries to subscribe to FirstSearch in 2005.

7 Open WorldCat Search Enter Find in a Library plus search terms in Yahoo! or Google. Results include links with the prefix and the name of a library-owned item that matches terms Results for holding libraries displayed within a given radius to the zip code entered.

8 Google Results

9 Enter Zipcode location information

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11 Open WorldCatTools Google Toolbar OCLC Western Service Center 63

12 Open WorldCatTools Yahoo Toolbar OCLC Western Service Center 64

13 User Contribution in WorldCat Non-catalogers can now add content to WorldCat records reviews, notes, and table of contents. Facilitates sharing among library users worldwide. Examples family members add notes to records for genealogical materials, community comments on historical photographs, etc. OCLC monitors all submissions. Not part of the record s authoritative bibliographic information.

14 How to Create Awareness? California State Library plans to work on Statewide PR. Proposals for improving theworldcat result ranking on Yahoo! and Google. (We ll have to keep our eyes on that.)

15 The State Librarian says We need different avenues to approach the 21 st century information seeker. Access into our records needs to be more seamless. With these services, we re pushing library resources to the users.

16 To Succeed in the 21 st Century Library resources must be where the customer goes to get information Libraries must promote their resources and market their services. Libraries need to invest in their Web presence and still train individuals on how to access our sites and search our databases.

17 Thank you! Susan Kantor-Horning Electronic Resources Specialist