WorldCat is a very big online catalog, a list of books and things like books in tens of thousands of libraries in many countries.
WorldCat was built by OCLC, which is an organization of libraries. WorldCat is maintained by the group of libraries in OCLC.
History
In the 1970s, OCLC grew from a regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an international network.
In 1979, the first Canadian and the first international library joined OCLC.
Timeline
On August 26, 1971, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, now called WorldCat, went online.
1975 – Library and Archives Canada begins adding records
1978 – Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands) begins to participate 1985 – British Library begins adding UKMARC records 1987 – National Library of Scotland begins adding 1987 – National Library of Wales begins contributing 1987 – National Central Library, Taiwan begins adding 1991 – Six staff members from the National Library of China help OCLC to add a computerized catalog of Chinese books 1991 – National Library of Turkey becomes an OCLC member 1992 – The National Library of Australia begins contributing 1992 – National and University Library of Iceland begins adding 1995 – National Library of the Czech Republic begins contributing 1997 – National Library of New Zealand begins contributing 1998 – National Library of Ireland begins adding 1999 – National Diet Library of Japan begins adding records for Western-language materials 1999 – National Library of Lithuania begins contributing 1999 – National Library of South Africa begins adding 2002 – Singapore National Union Catalog is added 2003 – Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library), the Library of Congress and OCLC agree to develop a Virtual International Authority File 2003 – Chilean Directorate of Libraries, Archives, and Museums (DIBAM) of the National Library begin contributing 2004 – Bibliothèque nationale de France begins contributing 2005 – National Library of Finland begins adding 2005 – Iraqi National Library and Archive begins adding 2006 – Deutsche Nationalbibliothek adds 4 million new records 2006 – Dutch Union Catalog is added 2007 – National Library of Mexico begins adding 2007 – Swiss National Library adds 2007 – Kungliga biblioteket (National Library of Sweden) adds 2008 – National Library Service, Barbados adds 2008 – National Library of Israel adds 2008 – National Library of Spain adds 2008 – Royal Library of Denmark and Danish Bibliographic Centre add 2009 – National and University Library of Slovenia begins adding 2010 – National Library of Serbia begins adding 2012 – National Library of Norway begins adding
References
More reading
Other websites
WorldCat website
WorldCat Identities
What is OCLC?