WorldCat

Are you interested in contributing to HLWIKI Canada - hlwiki.ca? contact: dean.giustini@ubc.ca To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the wiki index. Introduction See also Google scholar | Open access in Canada | Open search tools | Scirus WorldCat is a union catalogue which lists 1.5 billion holdings from more than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries. The database is built and maintained by a global cooperative of participating libraries and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). In 2009, OAIster http://www.oaister.org/ - a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service - was merged with WorldCat. While still a union catalogue of millions of records and archival resources, OAIster was built by harvesting digital collections using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). With considerable biomedical and scientific content, OAIster was a rich source of grey literature. Its inclusion into WorldCat has benefitted researchers and scholars from around the world as this content provides access to digital resources, and scholarly content in several subject areas. The content is also a good complement to Google scholar). In 2011-2012, WorldCat started to provide access to social networking and personalization tools to make the search-and-discovery experience in WorldCat more informative and appealing. What is searchable? Digital resources including: born-digital texts audio files images movies datasets Collections including: theses technical reports research papers image collections institutional repositories some self-archived materials Key websites OAIster® database: millions of digital resources from thousands of contributors OAIster OCLC makes OAIster records available through WorldCat.org to ensure long-term public access to digital resources. Dublin, Ohio, 2009. WorldCat: Find items in libraries near you, 1.5 billion items available here through a library References Bertot JC, Berube K. Assessing the usability of WorldCat Local: findings and considerations. Libr Quarterly. 2012;82(2):207-21. Chen X. Google Books assessments: comparing Google Books content with WorldCat content. Online Information Review. 2012;36(4). Hagedorn K. OAIster: a "no dead ends" OAI service provider. Library Hi Tech. 2003;21(2);170-181. Norris M, Oppenheim C, Rowland F. Finding open access articles using Google, Google Scholar, OAIster and OpenDOAR. Online Info Rev. 2008;32(6):709-715.