Fred Kilgour - OCLC

OCLC

Based in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest OPAC in the world. Under Kilgour’s leadership, the nonprofit corporation introduced a shared cataloging system in 1971 for 54 Ohio academic libraries. WorldCat contains holding records from most public and private libraries worldwide. WorldCat is available through many libraries and university computer networks.

In 1971, after four years of development, OCLC introduced its online shared cataloging system, which would achieve dramatic cost savings for libraries. For example, in the first year of system use, the Alden Library at Ohio University was able to increase the number of books it cataloged by a third, while reducing its staff by 17 positions. Word of this new idea spread on campuses across the country, starting an online revolution in libraries that continues to this day.

The shared cataloging system and database that Kilgour devised made it unnecessary for more than one library to originally catalog an item. Libraries would either use the cataloging information that already existed in the database, or they would put it in for other libraries to use. The shared catalog also provided information about materials in libraries in the rest of the network. For the first time, a user in one library could easily find out what was held in another library. The network quickly grew outside Ohio to all 50 states and then internationally.

Because of his contributions to librarianship, OCLC and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), an organization within the American Library Association, jointly sponsors an award named after Kilgour. Inaugurated in 1998 and awarded annually, it highlights research on information technology with a focus on "work that "shows the promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect of the publication, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information, or the processes by which information and data are manipulated and managed."

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