What Are the Major Bibliographic Utilities

OCLC

• Online Computer Library Corp.
• Has over 40,000 members
• Has over 48 million unique records

RLIN

• Research Libraries Information Network
• Oriented towards academic libraries.
• Has a few hundred academic members.
• Many more subscribers.
• Provides access to over 35 million unique items.

LOC (Library of Congress)

• Competes with the not-for-profit bibliographic utilities that license the LOC database.

British Library National Bibliographic Service (NBS)

• Provides a database of over 17 million records.

Other Services

• A number of private companies provide catalog-support services, including databases of records.
• These companies may obtain their records by:
  • Licensing subsets of databases from the major bibliographic utilities.
  • Developing their own bibliographic databases.
• The databases, though, are usually much smaller, though oriented to the most common and current books different types of libraries might have on their shelves.
• Types and examples of alternative bibliographic database providers:
  • Library automation system vendors
    • Example: Innovative Interfaces
  • Content database vendors
    • Example: SilverPlatter
  • Library catalog conversion services
    • Example: Marcive

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