Red de Lectura Pública de Euskadi (Public Reading Network of Euskadi) has announced that its union catalogue, which represents the collections of more than 240 municipal libraries in the Basque Country of Spain, will be added to WorldCat in 2015. The Network will add more than 650,000 records to WorldCat, including approximately 55,000 Basque titles.
The Network, which serves over 2 million people, is the first public library group in Spain to make its collections globally accessible through WorldCat, which claims to be the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries around the world contribute, maintain and share WorldCat data that is managed and enhanced by OCLC. WorldCat data supports a range of services, driving efficiency in library management, improving discovery of library collections and increasing visibility of libraries and their collections on the Web.
The Public Reading Network of Euskadi has, at the heart of its mission, the promotion of reading and ongoing usage of the Basque language (Euskera), keeping the culture of the region alive. Euskera is the only language in Western Europe that is not demonstrably related to any other, making it unique as a "language isolate." It is spoken by over 600,000 people and has enjoyed a resurgence in recent decades. When these records are added to WorldCat, the collections of Basque works that were previously difficult to locate will now be more accessible to libraries around the world.
Libraries in over 170 countries and territories have contributed holdings in WorldCat. There are more than 485 languages and dialects represented in the database.
