DUBLIN, Ohio, February 28, 2008—The National Library of China, the largest library in Asia, will add its bibliographic records to the OCLC WorldCat database, the world’s most comprehensive online resource for finding items held in libraries, making those records available to researchers worldwide.
The National Library of China will develop software to convert the format of its records before they can be added to WorldCat. Following development and conversion of the records, the National Library of China anticipates that some 1.5 million records will be sent to OCLC in 2008. These records, when added to WorldCat, will display Chinese characters. The Library will continue adding records to WorldCat beyond 2008 once the format has been converted.
"The National Library of China values its cooperative partnership with OCLC," said Zhan Furui, Director, National Library of China. "By loading our records into WorldCat, the National Library of China is pleased to share its rich Chinese cultural resources on a global scale."
"The addition of these records from the National Library of China will be welcomed by scholars around the world," said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. "The OCLC cooperative continues to evolve into a truly global enterprise that connects East and West and North and South."
"OCLC is indeed honored to have the National Library of China add records to WorldCat," says Andrew H. Wang, Vice President, OCLC Asia Pacific. "China offers 5,000 years of recorded history, one of the oldest cultural heritages of human kind. The records from the National Library of China will further enrich the value of WorldCat for scholarship worldwide, and will further enhance WorldCat’s role as a bridge of understanding between continents and cultures."
OCLC, the world’s largest library cooperative, opened an office in Beijing in July 2007 to better serve the growing information needs of libraries and other cultural heritage institutions in China and other parts of Asia.
OCLC’s relationship with libraries in the People’s Republic of China began in 1986, when OCLC introduced its CJK system for cataloging Chinese, Japanese and Korean materials. An OCLC Service Center was established at Tsinghua University in 1996, and access to the OCLC FirstSearch online reference service was made available to about 100 academic institutions in China. In 2004, the CALIS (China Academic Library and Information System) consortium, under the leadership of Peking University, began providing access to a NetLibrary eBook collection for 80 libraries in China.
OCLC was selected to be the host site for the 4th China-U.S. Library Conference in October 2007 in Dublin, Ohio. Last held at Shanghai Library in 2005, this prestigious scholarly conference brought together leaders from libraries, museums and archives in China and the United States for three days of presentations and meetings focusing on cooperation among institutions in China and the United States.
About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit library service and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent and preservation services to 60,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library materials. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.
