WorldCat's 40th Anniversary

              August 26, 2011 OCLC offices in 10 countries
OCLC Staff Celebrate the
40th Anniversary of WorldCat
Day One
On August 26, 1971, the OCLC Online Union Catalog and Shared Cataloging system began operation. That first day, from a single terminal catalogers at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, cataloged 133 books online. That first night, back in Columbus, Ohio, the OCLC computer system was struck by lightning. It was an auspicious beginning.
The first year it used OCLC, Ohio University was able to increase the number of books it cataloged by a third, while reducing its staff by 17 positions through attrition. OCLC was indeed delivering on its promise of increasing access to information while reducing costs.
Frederick G. Kilgour,
inventor of WorldCat
( 1914– 2006)
Access then…
The first OCLC cathode ray tube terminal was the Irascope Model LTE, which was manufactured
by Spiras Systems. OCLC deployed 68 LTES,
one of which is now on permanent display in
the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C., and another in the new OCLC Museum in Dublin, Ohio.
The LTE was connected to OCLC via a dedicated, leased telephone line from AT& T; message traffic moved at the rate of 2400 baud ( 2,400 symbols
per second).
Access now...
People can now use their mobile phones to access WorldCat via WorldCat Local, where 4G wireless downloads are 2,500 times faster than the original OCLC network. Wired networks are now 416,000 times faster.
OCLC Historical Videos
“ What the OCLC Online Union Catalog Means to Me” ( 1996),
Grand Prize Winning Essay by OCLC User ( 5 minutes)
“ What the OCLC Interlibrary Loan Service Means to Me”
( 1999), Grand Prize Winning Essay by OCLC User ( 7 minutes)
“ Cruisin’ that Information Super Highway” ( 1994),
Melvil Dewey and his comical sidekick “ Dot” are inspired by
Al Gore’s invention of the Internet ( 4 minutes)
“ The Omaha Project: A Rare Book Adventure” ( 1990) Four OCLC staff members and 40 volunteers use the OCLC
database to help the FBI inventory more than 40,000 stolen
rare books and manuscripts and help locate their possible
owners ( 12 minutes)
“ OCLC Founder Frederick G. Kilgour meets with OCLC staff
in 2002; reflects on WorldCat, future of digital books in 1989”
( 6 minutes)
Videos are available online at http:// www. dasdad. das
Happy 40th Birthday!
Videos are available
online at
www. oclc. org/ go/
worldcat- birthday. en. html Worthington ( Ohio) Libraries added the
1 billionth holding symbol to WorldCat on August 11, 2005. Left to right: Meribah Mansfield, Director, Worthington Libraries,
Jay Jordan, and Anne Slane, Cataloger, Worthington Libraries.
OCLC computer room ca. 1978, with Sigma 9 computers in the background. In 1978, there were four Xerox Sigma 9 computers on the OCLC online system based at 1125 Kinnear Road ( see page 4). By 1989, there were 17 Sigma 9s on the system. In 1990, with its new technological platform, OCLC began decommissioning Sigma 9s, with the last one turned
off in December 1994.
OCLC Users Council celebrated the addition of the 500 millionth holding symbol to WorldCat on January 9, 1994. Left to right: OCLC Board Chair Edward G. Holley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Users Council President Kent Hendrickson, University of Nebraska– Lincoln; and OCLC President and CEO K. Wayne Smith.
On June 1, 1979, the University of
Hawaii held a dedication ceremony to commemorate the start of its participation in OCLC. An all- day feast and OCLC demonstrations followed.
“ Bless ye this library and these machines,” said Kahuna Charles Kenn, an official “ Living Treasure of Hawaii,” at the dedication of the University’s OCLC terminals.
WorldCat
Facts
Aloha, WorldCat!
Sigma 9 computer era: 1971– 1994— home of WorldCat
500 million holdings!
Thanks a billion!
In 1981, OCLC printed 312 tons of catalog cards. In 2010, OCLC printed 1.5 tons of cards.
The oldest item in WorldCat is believed to be a mummy cloth fragment, ca. 3400 B. C.
Herb Marine is the one and only OCLC staff member who was working at OCLC on August 26, 1971 who still works here today. A Consulting Software Engineer in OCLC Database Services, Herb joined OCLC on January 19, 1970. Congratulations, Herb!
OCLC President and CEO Rowland C. W. Brown shakes hands with the 10 Millionth Bibliographic Record, in 1983. Congratulations to the staff who serve the ever- expanding OCLC global cooperative from offices in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. In 2011, OCLC EMEA celebrates its 30th anniversary and OCLC Asia Pacific and OCLC Latin America and the Caribbean celebrate their 25th anniversaries. The OCLC network now extends to more than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries.
OCLC Latin America
and the Caribbean
( 25th anniversary)
OCLC Europe,
the Middle East
and Africa
( 30th anniversary)
OCLC Asia Pacific ( 25th anniversary)
WorldCat growth since 1998
Millions of records
Multilingual WorldCat
Percentage of records for
non- English materials
Total Records 235.5 m
English 97.7 m
German 33.0 m
French 21.3 m
Spanish 9.7 m
Japanese 7.5 m
Chinese 5.9 m
Italian 3.9 m
Dutch 3.5 m
Latin 3.2 m
Russian 3.2 m
Physical holdings
in WorldCat
235 million
bibliographic records
1.7 billion holdings
Licensed
digital content in
library collections
530.8 million electronic database records
Local library content
being digitized
43.7 million items
( Google, HathiTrust,
OAlster)
As of June 30, 2011
As of June 30, 2011
WorldCat:
moving beyond bibliography
2011— a year of anniversaries!
The world’s libraries. Connected. OCLC 6565 Kilgour Place Dublin, Ohio 43017- 3395 1- 800- 848- 5878 + 1- 614- 764- 6000 Fax: + 1- 614- 764- 6096 www. oclc. org
214650USB 1108, OCLC
WorldCat: 40 years of library cooperation
Records entered into WorldCat since 1971 have been continuously migrated, reformatted and updated to conform to newly issued cataloging standards. They have been touched and enhanced hundreds of times by librarians around the world and by OCLC staff and automated systems. For example, the MARC record on the left entered WorldCat on October 14, 1983. The display of information was the same, whether on a cataloger’s terminal or a public use terminal for end- users. On the right, the same data from 1983 appears in a much more attractive display in WorldCat Local in 2011.
WorldCat was here… and here… and here!
WorldCat was housed from 1971 to 1975 in the Research Center of The Ohio State University, 1120 Kinnear Road, Columbus, Ohio ( left). In 1975, WorldCat was moved across the road to an OCLC- owned facility of five buildings on six acres at 1125 Kinnear Road ( right). In 1981, WorldCat was moved to its present location, 6565 Kilgour Place, Dublin, Ohio.
Furthering access to the world’s information
Reducing the rate of rise of library costs