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About OCLC : Heritage : In the beginning
In the beginning…In 1965, academic libraries were in crisis. They faced a flood of new information, all of which had to be quickly organized for users—who demanded the newest books, the latest articles, and the most current papers. Keeping up with this information explosion had become an expensive exercise in futility. On July 5, 1967, three university presidents, three university vice presidents and four university library directors from the Ohio College Association met on the campus of Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for a nonprofit organization called the Ohio College Library Center. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour to build a ‘cooperative, computerized network in which most, if not all, Ohio libraries would participate.’ Fred’s idea was to merge the newest information storage and retrieval system, the computer, with the oldest, the library. His vision was that this new computerized library would be active rather than passive, that people would no longer go to the library, but that the library would go to the people. Back in 1967, this was a rather revolutionary idea. The first step in this vision would be to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database. The network and database would streamline operations and control rising costs. It also would bring libraries together to work cooperatively to keep track of the world’s information for the benefit of researchers and scholars. On August 26, 1971, the Alden Library at Ohio University became the first library in the world to do online cataloging. That first day, Ohio University cataloged 133 books online. That first night, back in Columbus, the OCLC computer system was hit by lightning. It was an auspicious beginning. The first year it used the shared cataloging system, Ohio University increased the number of books it cataloged by 33% while reducing its staff by 17 positions through attrition. Word of this idea spread on campuses across the country. The online revolution in libraries had begun. |
Librarians' Toolbox:|
OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories around the world have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials. |
OCLC Headquarters |
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