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NEWS FROM OCLC
Compiled by Jay Weitz
For the 2006 OLAC Conference


General News

Frederick G. Kilgour, Founder of OCLC, Dies at 92
Frederick G. Kilgour, a librarian and educator who created an international computer library network and database that changed the way people use libraries, died on July 31, 2006. He was 92 years old and had lived since 1990 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Kilgour is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in 20th-century librarianship for using computer networks to increase access to information in libraries around the world. He was among the earliest proponents of adapting computer technology to library processes. At the dawn of library automation in the early 1970s, he founded OCLC and led the creation of a library network that today links 55,000 institutions in 110 countries.

WorldCat.org Offers Web Access to Libraries’ Collections
Web users can now search the catalogs of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide through WorldCat.org, a site that offers a downloadable search box to allow access to the world’s largest bibliographic database and resource for discovery of materials held in libraries. The search box can be downloaded from the WorldCat.org site to library Websites, museum sites, genealogy sites, book club sites, blogs, or any other site where Web searchers would benefit from access to the collections of the world’s libraries.

Since 2003, WorldCat records have been made available to popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! through the OCLC Open WorldCat program, which is intended to make information from libraries more visible on the Web. WorldCat.org, which is now available in beta form, makes the entire WorldCat database available to anyone interested in searching just the content of libraries. Through WorldCat.org, users can access other services from some participating libraries such as interlibrary loan or online reference help from library professionals. Try WorldCat.org from the site: <http://www.worldcat.org/>. Find out more about the downloadable search box: <http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/org.oclc.lac.affiliate.GetSearchBox>.

OCLC Acquires DiMeMa
OCLC has acquired DiMeMa (Digital Media Management), the organization that developed and supports CONTENTdm, the leading digital management software for libraries distributed by OCLC. CONTENTdm software offers a complete set of tools to store, manage, and deliver digital collections such as historical documents, photos, newspapers, audio, and video on the Web. OCLC has been the exclusive distributor of CONTENTdm software to libraries, cultural heritage organizations, and other nonprofit organizations since 2002. Greg Zick, founder of DiMeMa and former Professor at the University of Washington, will be Vice President of OCLC Digital Services, and will report to Phyllis B. Spies, Vice President, OCLC Collection Management Services. The DiMeMa staff of 11 will maintain its office in Seattle, Washington.

CONTENTdm has evolved into a powerful digital collection management solution that offers scalable tools for archiving collections of any size. Today, more than 300 libraries and other cultural heritage organizations license CONTENTdm software to manage more than 2,500 digital collections. Metadata for these digital collections can be added to WorldCat. Once in WorldCat, these collection items can be found by searching the database, or searching the Web. Items in WorldCat can now be discovered through WorldCat.org, a new search site that also offers a downloadable search box, and through popular search engines like Google and Yahoo! as part of the OCLC Open WorldCat program.

Getty Vocabularies Added to OCLC Terminologies Service
OCLC and the Getty Research Institute (GRI) announced that the Getty Vocabularies--the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) and the Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)--will be available through the OCLC Terminologies Service. The OCLC Terminologies Service is a Web service that was recently launched to provide libraries, museums, and archives access to a variety of thesauri through a single interface. It may be used as a stand-alone tool or may be used with different metadata editors, such as OCLC Connexion, CONTENTdm, or local systems. The Getty Vocabularies are the premiere references for categorizing works of art, architecture, material culture, and the names of artists, architects and others. Editors in the Getty Vocabulary Program, an operating program of the Getty Research Institute, continually monitor developments in the cultural heritage field to maintain thesauri with terms, names and other information about people, places, things and concepts relating to art, architecture and material culture. To learn more about Getty Vocabularies, visit: <http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/>.

The addition of the Getty Vocabularies will add three new thesauri to the OCLC Terminologies Service suite. Benefits of the OCLC Terminologies Service include aggregating thesauri and other controlled vocabularies or lists that are in differing formats into one format, reducing the need to learn different searching techniques, searching across multiple thesauri, enabling the user to add more metadata through easy copy and paste, and by adding better access to materials for users searching catalogs or Websites. The OCLC Terminologies Service grew from work in OCLC Research. More information about the OCLC Terminologies Service is available at <http://www.oclc.org/terminologies/>.

Collections and Technical Services

Connexion Enhancements Installed August 2006
Among the Connexion enhancements installed on August 13, 2006 were: OCLC Interim Support for ISBN 13
A new international standard is expanding the current 10-digit ISBN to a 13-digit ISBN. The new ISBN will consist of 13 digits, starting with the 3-digit prefix that identifies the book industry (currently 978), followed by the core 9-digit number, then ending with the recalculated check digit that validates the internal integrity of the whole number. As such, it will be identical to the EAN Bookland 13-digit code that already appears encoded in the bar code printed on the back of new books. Although the official date for moving to this new standard is January 1, 2007, some publishers expect to begin printing both the current 10- and the new 13-digit ISBNs in materials later this year. This will allow them to make the transition more easily to the new ISBN-13. For further details on the ISBN-13 implementation, please see: <http://www.isbn-international.org/en/revision.html> and <http://www.isbn-international.org/en/download/implementation-guidelines-04.pdf>. The Library of Congress began recording ISBN-13 numbers in LC records on October 1, 2004. Because OCLC was in the process of moving to a new system/database platform, OCLC adopted an interim support for ISBN-13 numbers in WorldCat, which remains in effect until OCLC has completed implementation of ISBN-13. Implementation is scheduled for November 12, 2006 and is described in Technical Bulletin 253, "ISBN and OCLC Number Changes", which was published in September 2006.

BBC Audiobooks America Partners with OCLC
OCLC is pleased to announce that BBC Audiobooks America, a major supplier of audiobooks to the public library market, has become a Vendor Record Contribution Partner. BBC Audiobooks America, located in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, publishes and distributes unabridged audiobooks and radio dramatizations in CD, audiocassette, and MP-3CD formats. In addition, they distribute some BBC video programs. For more information on their extensive offerings in many subject areas, see their Website at <http://www.bbcaudiobooksamerica.com/>. OCLC began loading original MARC records for BBC Audiobooks America titles in September 2006. The symbol "BBCAA" in subfield $c of the 040 field will identify titles contributed by BBC Audiobooks America to WorldCat. When a record from BBC Audiobooks America matches a record already in WorldCat, the "BBCAA" symbol is added in subfield $d of the 040 field. In both cases of original records and matches, a 938 field is added to the MARC record that contains the vendor code BBCA. This code is indexed; vendor records are searchable using the vendor information keyword index. For a list of all partners contributing records through the Vendor Record Contribution Program, see <http://www.oclc.org/partnerships/material/contribution/technical/default.htm>.

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Last updated: December 20, 2006
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