OCLC Project Opens WorldCat Records to Google by Barbara Quint. Newsbreaks (Oct 27) - OCLC will test opening up the WorldCat database of library holdings to Google. They will begin with 2 million representing books that are held by at least 100 libraries. "Searches on Google will retrieve the records and link through OCLC to library holdings. The move expands the scope of the Open WorldCat yearlong pilot project to make library resources available from non-library Web sites and will “test the effectiveness of Web search engines in guiding users to library-owned materials.”"
Clicking on a Google citation will take one to a prompt for location in order to find the nearest library. This will work at zip code level for the US and postal code for Canada.
One problem noted was the thinness of a bibliographic record compared to a full text page for relevancy ranking.
Posted by Gwen at October 27, 2003 06:00 PM