ABSTRACT

The technological history of OCLC is well known: the introduction of online shared cataloging in 1971 and the resulting dramatic savings for libraries in cataloging costs; the expansion of the OCLC network over the past 26 years from 54 Ohio libraries to 25,000 libraries in 63 countries; the sustained growth of the OCLC shared bibliographic database, WorldCat, to its present status as the most consulted database in higher education; and the recent pioneering work in end-user online reference services, electronic publishing and electronic archiving.