May 21, 2008
OCLC/Google Agreement Links Digitized Books to WorldCat
OCLC and Google have signed an agreement to exchange data that will facilitate the discovery of library collections through Google search services. OCLC member libraries participating in the Google Book Search program may share their WorldCat-derived MARC records with Google, improving the search results of their library collections through Google.
Under terms of the agreement, Google will link from Google Book Search (Google's service that makes the full text of more than one million books searchable) to WorldCat.org, driving traffic to library OPACs and other library services. In turn, Google will share data and links to digitized books with OCLC, making it possible to create records in WorldCat for the items that have been digitized and made available by Google and participating OCLC member libraries.
The new agreement enables OCLC to create MARC records describing the Google digitized books from OCLC member libraries and to link to them. In addition, WorldCat metadata will be made available to Google directly from OCLC or through member libraries participating in the Google Book Search program.
In related news, Google recently released an API (application programming interface) that provides links to books in Google Book Search using ISBNs, LCCNs and OCLC numbers. This API allows WorldCat.org users to link to some books that Google has scanned through a Get It link. The link works both ways. If a user finds a book in Google Book Search, a link can often be tracked back to local libraries through WorldCat.org. To see an example, go to the OCLC WorldCat website and click on Preview Item (Google Books), which appears under the Get It menu.
For additional information, visit OCLC's news webpage.
