OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
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OCLC headquarters
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| Nonprofit cooperative | |
| Industry | Information |
| Founded | July 5, 1967 (as Ohio College Library Center) |
| Headquarters | Dublin, Ohio, US |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Skip Prichard, President and CEO |
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| Revenue | $203 million (2015–16) |
| Total assets | $425 million (2015–16) |
| Total equity | $239 million (2015–16) |
| Members | 16,964 libraries in 122 countries (2015–16) |
| Website | www |
OCLC, currently incorporated as OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated, is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog (OPAC) in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services (around $200 million annually as of 2016[update]).
OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of Ohio university presidents, vice presidents, and library directors who wanted to create a cooperative, computerized network for Ohio libraries. The group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system. Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, and increase efficiency in library management. The goal of this network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide.
Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
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