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OCLC WorldCat Collection
Analysis Service Now Available

By Rosario Garza
If you need to know how your library's collection compares against the collections of other libraries, OCLC now has a service that provides you with that information. OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis service is based on the holdings available in WorldCat, a database of more than 57 million bibliographic records. By using WorldCat's holdings information, your library can leverage the holdings information you have been adding to WorldCat.

The WorldCat Collection Analysis service is a subscription service. To participate, libraries must have their holdings in WorldCat and must also have a subscription to WorldCat through OCLC's FirstSearch service. If your library participates in a group subscription (either through a regional consortia or through a statewide purchase), that participation qualifies as having a subscription to WorldCat through FirstSearch.

Individual libraries subscribing to the service will be able to compare their respective collections to those of peer institutions at the subject level as frequently as needed. Groups of libraries will also be able to subscribe. Using the entire group's holdings information, the members will be able to determine overlap and uniqueness among their collections. Library staff can view the results immediately. Or, if they prefer, they can export the resulting reports in a tab-delimited format for easy manipulation.

The service is available in a special interface within the OCLC FirstSearch service, meaning there is no software that needs to be installed. You will be able to make the analysis as broad as you want or limit the reports using parameters such as subject categories, publication dates, language, format and audience. The service supports multiple classification schemes including LC, Dewey and NLM.

Subscription pricing for this collection analysis service is based on the number of holdings an individual library has in WorldCat. There is a one-time profiling fee of $500. For individual libraries, annual subscriptions begin at $1,000 (for libraries with up to 100,000 holdings in WorldCat) and go up to $8,500 (for libraries with more than 1 million holdings). Group/consortia pricing is available on request.

More information is available at www.oclc.org/collectionanalysis/. If you have questions, please contact Rosario Garza (rgarza@bcr.org) at BCR.

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OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis Service Now Available

OCLC WorldCat Collection
Analysis Service Now Available