National Library of Australia - Gateways>

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 53| October 2001


Kinetica to Provide Gateway Access to OCLC's WorldCat Service

The National Library of Australia and the Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC) have negotiated a 12-month trial to access OCLC’s WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalogue), through Kinetica. The trial will start in 2002.

‘We are delighted to offer access to OCLC WorldCat through the Kinetica service,’ said Jan Fullerton, Director-General of the National Library of Australia. ‘This will enable many smaller Australian libraries to have access to the rich resources of WorldCat for the first time.’

‘We welcome these libraries to the OCLC community,’ said Jay Jordan, OCLC president and chief executive officer. ‘OCLC is pleased to enhance the local cooperative initiatives of the National Library of Australia.’

WorldCat is a merged, electronic catalogue of the bibliographic and holding information of OCLC member libraries.

With headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a non-profit organisation that provides computer-based cataloguing, reference, resource sharing and preservation services to 40 000 libraries in 76 countries and territories. OCLC was founded in 1967 to improve access to the world’s information and reduce information costs, and conducts ongoing research to develop technologies to support that mission. Forest Press, a division of OCLC since 1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

OCLC’s WorldCat database contains all records catalogued by OCLC’s member libraries, it offers over 41 million bibliographic records, representing more than 750 million items held in libraries around the world and it includes records representing 400 languages.

This trial service will be available to small, special and school libraries in Australia who are registered members of Kinetica. The trial does not include university, State and National libraries. Many of these libraries already have direct access to OCLC’s WorldCat database.

David Toll, Phyllis Spies, Jan Fullerton, Jay Jordan and Andrew Wang

Kinetica customers will access OCLC’s WorldCat database via KineticaWeb. They will pay the same rate as they currently do now for accessing the existing databases, such as the National Bibliographic Database, CJK or the Research Library Group’s Union Catalogue.

Kinetica customers who would like to be considered for the trial can submit an online expression of interest available at www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/databases.html.

Libraries who are not members of Kinetica and who would like to be considered part of this trial can find information about Kinetica, including how to join and our charges, by visiting our web site at www.nla.gov.au/kinetica. Alternatively they can contact one of our customer service staff by phoning our toll free number 1800 026 155 or emailing kinetica@nla.gov.au.
—Papiya Chakravarti

Above, from left to right: David Toll, Deputy Director-General, NLA; Phyllis Spies, OCLC Vice President Worldwide Library Services; Jan Fullerton, Director-General, NLA; Jay Jordan OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer and Andrew Wang, Executive Director, OCLC Asia Pacific

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