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OCLC acquires the assets of Openly Informatics

A leading provider of linking software and services for the library market, Openly Informatics’ 1.2 million-record database of linking metadata for electronic resources will be used to enrich OCLC WorldCat, the world’s largest database of bibliographic information. The enhanced records will improve WorldCat applications, such as FirstSearch WorldCat, WorldCat Resource Sharing, WorldCat Collection Analysis and Open WorldCat.

OCLC WorldCat, in turn, will extend the Openly Informatics database by contributing metadata covering materials in other electronic formats, including electronic books, digital audiobooks, digital theses and dissertations.

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How women and men use the Internet

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows how men’s and women’s use of the Internet has changed over time. Some highlights:

The percentage of women using the Internet still lags slightly behind the percentage of men. Women under 30 and black women outpace their male peers. However, older women trail dramatically behind older men.
Men are slightly more intense Internet users than women. Men log on more often, spend more time online and are more likely to be broadband users.
In most categories of Internet activity, more men than women are participants.
Women are more likely than men to use e-mail to write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and stories, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories.
Men and women are equally likely to use the Internet to buy products and take part in online banking, but men are more likely to use the Internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, trade stocks and bonds and pay for digital content.

Still, the data show that men and women are more similar than different in their online lives, starting with their common appreciation of the Internet's strongest suit: efficiency. Men and women also value the Internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information.

View report summary
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View PDF of report

OCLC and ALISE announce 2006 research grant award recipients

The recipients are Lokman Meho with Kiduk Yang (Indiana University), Joyce Kanini Mbwesa with Julius Mburi (University of Nairobi), Jeffrey Pomerantz (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Louise Spiteri (Dalhousie University).

In recognition of the importance of research to the advancement of librarianship and information science, OCLC and ALISE promote independent research that helps librarians integrate new technologies into areas of traditional competence and contributes to a better understanding of the library environment.

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OCLC welcomes these new member libraries

The New Mexico Coalition for Literacy
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
OCLC Symbol: NMCFL
OCLC Network: AMIGOS

Fremont County District Library-Ashton Branch
Location: Ashton, Idaho, USA OCLC Symbol: IDABF
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Fremont County District Library-St. Anthony Branch
Location: St. Anthony, Idaho, USA
OCLC Symbol: WINCC
OCLC Network: OCLC Western Service Center

Membership guidelines and protocols

WorldCat update

WorldCat is the world’s most comprehensive bibliographic database. Updated at a rate of nearly one new record every 10 seconds, WorldCat contains more than 62 million bibliographic records and 1 billion holdings contributed by more than 9,000 libraries around the world. The Open WorldCat program makes the items in library collections—physical and digital, popular or special—discoverable by people searching the Internet.

See the latest WorldCat record

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