View this and past issues on the Web at http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/design/abstracts/
April 24, 2006 Vol. 9 no. 17

Peace Palace Library, The Hague, Netherlands, contributes 67 millionth record to WorldCat

Added on April 18, the record was for an online article, “Spanish criminal prosecutions use international human rights law to battle impunity in Chile and Argentina,” by Robert J. Wilson, published in Ko’aga Roñe’eta, an eJournal of human rights and humanitarian affairs.

The 66 and 65 millionth records were contributed April 9 and March 18 by Arnhem Public Library and Leiden University Libraries, the Netherlands, respectively, for the sheet music The Songs of Don McLean and the book Experimenteren in de woningbouw, a sociology text written in Dutch.

All three records were added as part of a project to load into WorldCat the Dutch Union Catalogue, which contains approximately 9.3 million records. To date, OCLC has processed 6.1 million records from the catalogue, adding 14.2 million holdings and 2.3 million original records.

Peace Palace Library


Internet penetration and impact

The importance of the Internet in key areas is growing, as well as the size of the Internet population

Key findings from the latest survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

  • The share of online Americans who say the Internet has greatly improved their ability to shop has doubled—from 16 to 32 percent—since March 2001.

  • The share of online Americans who say the Internet has greatly improved the way they pursue hobbies and interests has grown to 33 percent, up from 20 percent in March 2001.

  • The share of online Americans who say the Internet has greatly improved their ability to do their job has grown to 35 percent, up from 24 percent in March 2001.

  • The share of online Americans who say the Internet has greatly improved the way they get information about health care has grown to 20 percent, up from 17 percent in March 2001.

  • 73 percent of respondents (about 147 million adults) are Internet users, up from 66 percent (about 133 million adults) in January 2005.

  • The share of Americans who have broadband connections at home has now reached 42 percent (about 84 million), up from 29 percent (about 59 million) in January 2005.

View report


In memoriam:
Henriette D. Avram (1919-2006)

The OCLC Board of Trustees, Members Council, management and staff mourn the passing of Henriette Avram on April 22. From 1965-68, Mrs. Avram and a small team at the Library of Congress developed Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC), which today is a national and international standard for communication of bibliographic information in machine readable form. This format is used by OCLC member libraries to build WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, and support library resource sharing. Mrs. Avram served in seven positions with the Library of Congress, including Assistant Librarian for Processing Services and Associate Librarian for Collection Services. She retired in 1992 after 27 years of service.

View obituary

OCLC welcomes these new member libraries

Hashemite University
Location: Zarqa, Jordan
OCLC Symbol: JOHMU
OCLC Network: OCLC Middle East and India

Lund University-Library of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Location: Lund, Sweden
OCLC Symbol: SEBEH
OCLC Network: OCLC PICA

Gibson Southern High School
Location: Fort Branch, Indiana, USA
OCLC Symbol: INGSH
OCLC Network: INCOLSA

Membership guidelines


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 67 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

 

Subscribe/Unsubscribe | Questions/Comments

OCLC Abstracts uses the Internet to deliver timely information about OCLC services, programs, news and events directly to subscribers’ desktops. This e-journal augments and complements OCLC’s Web site and print communications.

Copyright 2006 OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. | http://www.oclc.org/
Please distribute this e-journal freely.