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The world's largest:
WorldCat is the largest bibliographic database in the world, storing 47 million records and 800 million location directories. More than 37,000 libraries in 76 countries are using WorldCat database system for catalogue classification, interlibrary loan and reference service. However, after 30 years of long-term development, WorldCat has become a clumsy hodgepodge full of 80 special systems. With the expansion of bibliography to multimedia materials, people put forward higher and higher requirements for the flexibility and expansibility of its database.
In order to find a centralized way to make full use of all information, libraries all over the world jointly established a non-profit membership organization OCLC, aiming at improving the management efficiency of WorldCat. After extensive testing of various common database products in the market, OCLC found that Oracle9i database is the only database that can meet their needs of fast text retrieval, enhanced performance and unlimited scalability. Therefore, they regard Oracle9i database platform as a part of OCLC's global strategy, with a view to smoothly extending cooperative services to more libraries around the world.
OCLC will use the advanced content management function in Oracle database to integrate data and metadata into the system information center library, which will make it easier for users to search and access information using Web browsers. At present, WorldCat users can only access text files containing bibliographic information. Soon, they will be able to access customized abstracts, images and sound files to meet their specific needs. Because of the good performance and expansibility of Oracle database, WorldCat will also develop new functions to enable users to access information more quickly and conveniently and enjoy the benefits brought by advanced technology. OCLC also plans to merge several systems supporting online catalog classification, interlibrary loan and reference service, and establish a centralized system information center library based on Oracle. OCLC hopes to use this system information center library to reduce the running cost and development time of new applications and services.