WorldCat

WorldCat is a global union catalog that lets users search the collections of participating libraries. OCLC maintains its shared bibliographic database and links catalog records to library holdings.

Union catalog: A catalog that combines records or holdings from multiple libraries into a shared search system. WorldCat is a large-scale union catalog, aggregating discovery across participating libraries.
Interlibrary loan: A service through which one library obtains materials for a user from another library. WorldCat holdings can help identify libraries that may lend a needed item.
Online Computer Library Center: The organization originally called the Ohio College Library Center, now known as OCLC. Its early cooperative cataloging network developed into the infrastructure behind WorldCat.
Cooperative cataloging: The collaborative creation and reuse of bibliographic records by multiple libraries. WorldCat made cooperative record sharing central to a large library network.
OCLC: A nonprofit cooperative that provides shared library services, research, and technology. OCLC maintains WorldCat and operates the services that support its records and holdings.
Library discovery service: A search system that helps users find resources across a library's collections and services. WorldCat provides broad discovery across participating libraries rather than one institution's collections.
Frederick G. Kilgour: An American librarian who founded the Ohio College Library Center and championed computerized library services. Kilgour led the organization that launched the shared cataloging system underlying WorldCat.
Library resource sharing: Arrangements that let libraries share materials, services, or expertise across institutional boundaries. WorldCat helps expose which institutions hold items that may be shared.
WorldCat database: OCLC's shared database of bibliographic records and participating libraries' holdings. This database supplies the catalog records and library locations displayed through WorldCat.
WorldCat Identities: An OCLC service that aggregates bibliographic information about authors and other creators. It builds creator-focused views from the works represented in WorldCat records.

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