Library cooperative OCLC has announced that the Bibliothèque nationale de France has added the 200 millionth bibliographic record to the WorldCat database. The 200 millionth record was added to WorldCat on August 27, 2010, one day after the 39th anniversary of the launching of the OCLC online union catalogue and shared cataloging system.
The phenomenal growth rate for bibliographic records is being matched by that of holding symbols in WorldCat, which represent the libraries that hold the items cataloged. The number of holdings surpassed 1.6 billion on June 4, 2010. The OCLC cooperative hit 1 billion holdings on August 11, 2005. It took the cooperative 34 years to get to 1 billion. Since then, libraries have added more than half a billion symbols in less than five years.
The 200 millionth record was created by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and was added as part of a major record loading project to reflect all of the national library's holdings in WorldCat. There are currently 40 national libraries adding digital images, national files and bibliographies to WorldCat. Libraries worldwide benefit from the millions of records added to WorldCat from the world's great national libraries.
WorldCat is a database of bibliographic information built continuously by libraries around the world since 1971. Each record in the WorldCat database contains a bibliographic description of a single item or work and a list of institutions that hold the item. The institutions share these records, using them to create local catalogues, arrange interlibrary loans and conduct reference work.
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