Opening the Door: A First Look at the OCLC WorldCat Metadata API
Libraries have long relied on OCLC’s WorldCat database as a way to cooperatively share bibliographic data and declare library holdings to support interlibrary loan services. As curator, OCLC has traditionally mediated all interactions with the WorldCat database through their various cataloging clie...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Code4Lib
2014-07-01
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| Series: | Code4Lib Journal |
| Online Access: | http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/9863 |
| Summary: | Libraries have long relied on OCLC’s WorldCat database as a way to cooperatively share bibliographic data and declare library holdings to support interlibrary loan services. As curator, OCLC has traditionally mediated all interactions with the WorldCat database through their various cataloging clients to control access to the information. As more and more libraries look for new ways to interact with their data and streamline metadata operations and workflows, these clients have become bottlenecks and an inhibitor of library innovation. To address some of these concerns, in early 2013 OCLC announced the release of a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) supporting read and write access to the WorldCat database. These APIs offer libraries their first opportunity to develop new services and workflows that directly interact with the WorldCat database, and provide opportunities for catalogers to begin redefining how they work with OCLC and their data. |
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| ISSN: | 1940-5758 |