Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, November 01, 2004

More on the Open WorldCat Pilot

Nancy O'Neill, Open WorldCat Pilot:A User's Perspective, Information Today, November 1, 2004. Excerpt: "OCLC's Open WorldCat Pilot 'is an initiative that integrates library records into popular Internet search sites and tests the effectiveness of the Web in guiding users to library-owned materials. The goal of the pilot: to make libraries more visible to Web users and more accessible from the sites where many people begin to look for information.' The project aims to 'open' WorldCat records to present and potential library users through the familiar Web search engines Google and Yahoo! Search....Grumble as we may, OCLC's Open WorldCat Pilot has the potential to achieve its goals and more. It may not yet have earned a standing ovation for its performance, but let's give a rousing cheer for the initiative — a special 'hats off' to Google and Yahoo! as our new library partners — and encourage OCLC to move from pilot to permanent."