Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, has announced that there are now more than 16.3 million French records in WorldCat, following completion of batch loading projects from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Système Universitaire de documentation (Sudoc) and the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (BM Lyon).
In 2009, the BnF and ABES, the agency that manages the Sudoc database for French universities, signed an agreement with OCLC to load their records and holdings information into WorldCat. OCLC then processed more than 8.8 million records for BnF and over 7.9 million records for ABES. The Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, the second largest public library in France, contributed more than 1.3 million records to WorldCat.
With these projects complete, there are now more than 16.3 million French-language records in WorldCat. The total number of WorldCat records has grown substantially in recent years. The percentage of French-language records has increased from 6.2 percent in 2007 to 9.6 percent in 2010.
WorldCat is a global network of library-management and user-facing services built upon cooperatively-maintained databases of bibliographic and institutional metadata. WorldCat enhances productivity across the full range of library workflows - from cataloguing to resource sharing to discovery and delivery - by intelligently reusing contributed data. The service seeks to make library resources more visible on the Internet by distributing data across a growing number of partner services and Web technologies.
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