DUBLIN, Ohio, January 3, 2006-OCLC Online Computer Library Center, the world's largest library cooperative, has purchased the assets of Openly Informatics, a leading provider of linking software and services for the library market, so that both organizations can strengthen their products and services to benefit OCLC libraries and clients of Openly Informatics.
Openly Informatics' 1.2 million-record database of linking metadata for electronic resources will be used to enrich OCLC WorldCat, the world's largest database of bibliographic information. The enhanced records will improve WorldCat applications such as FirstSearch WorldCat, WorldCat Resource Sharing, WorldCat Collection Analysis and Open WorldCat.
OCLC WorldCat, in turn, will extend the Openly Informatics database by contributing metadata covering materials in other electronic formats, including electronic books, digital audio books, digital theses and dissertations.
"One of our key objectives is to help libraries manage their digital collections as effectively as we have helped them manage their print collections," said Mike Teets, Vice President, OCLC Global Product Architecture. "This agreement with Openly Informatics is a fundamental component in our effort to build a union catalog of electronic content in WorldCat."
As part of the agreement, Dr. Eric S. Hellman, Founder and President of Openly Informatics, and his staff, will join OCLC to continue to manage, innovate and support Openly Informatics services.
"Openly Informatics and OCLC have shared a mission-to link people to information more efficiently," said Dr. Hellman. "Openly accomplishes this by working with library automation vendors, subscription agents, publishers, content aggregators and libraries, while OCLC pursues its public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing library costs. We believe that by joining together, Openly and OCLC will be better able to help the organizations we serve."
Dr. Hellman will serve as Director of the new division, operating as OCLC Openly Informatics.
About OCLC
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent and preservation services to 54,000 libraries in 109 countries and territories. For more information, visit www.oclc.org www.oclc.org. OCLC and its worldwide member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, making it the world's largest and richest online resource for finding library materials.
About Openly Informatics
Founded in 1998, Openly Informatics www.openly.com is a leading linking software and metadata company headquartered in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Openly Informatics has consistently been first to market with a number of innovations, including release of the first open source link server, the first to integrate A-Z list functionality within a link server, and the first to develop a link server compliant with OpenURL 1.0.