The National Library of Australia has agreed to add some 12 million bibliographic records to WorldCat, the world's largest database of catalogued items held in libraries, making these records visible to Web searchers worldwide. Australian libraries will use WorldCat to catalogue, find and share library materials.
“The National Library of Australia looks forward to working closely with OCLC through this collaborative services agreement which opens up access to WorldCat for Australian libraries. This agreement marks a major step forward in the sharing of Australian bibliographic data and exposure of the collections of Australian libraries internationally,” said Jan Fullerton, Australian National Library Director General.
Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, noted that the agreement benefits library users not only in
Australian libraries that contribute their current cataloguing and holdings to the Australian National Bibliographic Database and WorldCat will become governing members of the OCLC cooperative.
WorldCat contains more than 85 million records representing more than 1 billion items held in libraries worldwide. The Open WorldCat Program makes library records available on the open Web through popular search engines and partner sites, and through WorldCat.org, the site and single search box used to discover items in the world’s library collections. OCLC, the world’s largest library cooperative, built and maintains the WorldCat database with member libraries around the world.
The WorldCat database is growing at an extraordinary rate, with millions of records entered into the world’s largest bibliographic resource coming from outside the
