This week 45 years ago, Ohio University entered library catalog information about 133 books into an IBM mainframe database. This was the beginning of an online database about books. During the four and a half decades, librarians around the world have contributed to the database, called WordlCat, and managed by OCLC, a nonprofit, library cooperative based in Dublin, Ohio. I have been a member of the board since 2009.

The WorldCat database is the world’s largest network of library content and services. It lets users search the collections of libraries in your community and in thousands more libraries around the world. WorldCat grows every day thanks to the efforts of librarians and other information professionals. As of July 2016, WorldCat included 379,902,190 bibliographic records and 2,456,137,253 holdings. In addition to books and print journals, the database includes DVDs, historic photos, video games, musical scores, newspapers, webpages and many other items. A new record is added every second.  See the full 45th anniversary story at Celebrating 45 years of WorldCat – OCLC Next