In 2005, online library catalogs get no respect. Most librarians have learned that the rest of the world does not share an interest in the fine points of online public access catalogs.
OCLC's Worldcat, however, is a horse of a different color. WorldCat pulls together more than 60 million records representing the holdings of more than 8,600 libraries which created and maintain WorldCat. Until recently, access to WorldCat has always been limited to institutions which use a cataloging interface to WorldCat or which subscribe to WorldCat via the FirstSearch product.
OCLC has now permitted Google and Yahoo to harvest the WorldCat database. Eventually, brief catalog and holdings records for the entire WorldCat database will be made available through these search engines.
The point of "putting WorldCat in Google" (and Yahoo) is to make it possible for researchers to use their preferred search tool to identify the locations of the books, journals, and other resources they want for their research.
Open WorldCat represents a new business model for OCLC. As of July 1, 2005, WorldCat search results in Google and Yahoo will include holdings records only for libraries which subscribe to the FirstSearch version of WorldCat. Basically, libraries will be paying to make their holdings visible through Google and Yahoo. In theory, these search engine accessible holdings records should drive more users to subscribing institutions.
The business model for Open WorldCat makes more sense after one has used Open WorldCat to do some real work. Give it a try from this page, or by including a magic phrase in your Google and Yahoo searches. "Find in a library" is one magic phrase. In Google, limiting the search to Site:WorldCatLibraries.org will make Google act like a most remarkable online library catalog.
In the search box below, no magic phrase is needed if the button for "worldCatlibraries.org" is selected.
A Yahoo toolbar, including WorldCat, and Firefox Extensions for searching WorldCat via Google, are available via OCLC. For these downloads, and to learn more about Open WorldCat, visit the Open WorldCat Program page at OCLC.
Sample code for the Google search boxes, and licensing agreements, are available at news.google.com/searchcode.html.