Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 1 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
OCLC
OCLC, Inc. is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, then became the Online Computer Library Center as it expanded. In 2017, the name was formally changed to OCLC, Inc. OCLC and thousands of its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries pay (around $217.8 million annually in total as of 2021[update]) for the many different services it offers. OCLC also maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system.
OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, and library directors who wanted to create a cooperative, computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio. The group first met on July 5, 1967, on the campus of Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization and hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, as first executive director.
Kilgour and Ralph H. Parker, who was the head of libraries at the University of Missouri, had proposed the shared cataloging system in a 1965 report as consultants to the Committee of Librarians of the Ohio College Association. Kilgour and Parker wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. They were inspired in part by the earlier Columbia–Harvard–Yale Medical Libraries Computerization Project, an attempt at shared automated printing of catalog cards. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, and increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together cooperatively to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide.
Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. With this expansion, the name changed to the Online Computer Library Center in 1977. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training, support and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels; at the same time, the council approved governance changes that had been recommended by the Board of Trustees severing the tie between the networks and governance. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center.
In July 2010, the company was sued by SkyRiver, a rival startup, in an antitrust suit. Library automation company Innovative Interfaces joined SkyRiver in the suit. The suit was dropped in March 2013, however, following the acquisition of SkyRiver by Innovative Interfaces. Innovative Interfaces was bought by ExLibris in 2020, therefore passing OCLC as the dominant supplier of ILS services in the U.S. (over 70% market share for academic libraries and over 50% for public libraries for ExLibris, versus OCLC's 10% market share of both types of libraries in 2019).
In 2022, membership and governance expanded to include any institution with a subscription to one of many qualifying OCLC products (previously institutions qualified for membership by "contributing intellectual content or participating in global resource or reference sharing"), with the exception of for-profit organizations that are part of OCLC's partner program. This change reflected OCLC's expanding number of services due to its corporate acquisitions.
The following people served successively as president of OCLC:
OCLC
OCLC, Inc. is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, then became the Online Computer Library Center as it expanded. In 2017, the name was formally changed to OCLC, Inc. OCLC and thousands of its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries pay (around $217.8 million annually in total as of 2021[update]) for the many different services it offers. OCLC also maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system.
OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, and library directors who wanted to create a cooperative, computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio. The group first met on July 5, 1967, on the campus of Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization and hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, as first executive director.
Kilgour and Ralph H. Parker, who was the head of libraries at the University of Missouri, had proposed the shared cataloging system in a 1965 report as consultants to the Committee of Librarians of the Ohio College Association. Kilgour and Parker wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. They were inspired in part by the earlier Columbia–Harvard–Yale Medical Libraries Computerization Project, an attempt at shared automated printing of catalog cards. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, and increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together cooperatively to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide.
Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. With this expansion, the name changed to the Online Computer Library Center in 1977. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training, support and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels; at the same time, the council approved governance changes that had been recommended by the Board of Trustees severing the tie between the networks and governance. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center.
In July 2010, the company was sued by SkyRiver, a rival startup, in an antitrust suit. Library automation company Innovative Interfaces joined SkyRiver in the suit. The suit was dropped in March 2013, however, following the acquisition of SkyRiver by Innovative Interfaces. Innovative Interfaces was bought by ExLibris in 2020, therefore passing OCLC as the dominant supplier of ILS services in the U.S. (over 70% market share for academic libraries and over 50% for public libraries for ExLibris, versus OCLC's 10% market share of both types of libraries in 2019).
In 2022, membership and governance expanded to include any institution with a subscription to one of many qualifying OCLC products (previously institutions qualified for membership by "contributing intellectual content or participating in global resource or reference sharing"), with the exception of for-profit organizations that are part of OCLC's partner program. This change reflected OCLC's expanding number of services due to its corporate acquisitions.
The following people served successively as president of OCLC:
Recent media
Recent media