• General Information
• June 2006
• Issue: 203

Open WorldCat Expands Support to Dutch, French, German and Spanish Speakers

The “Find in a Library” interface at the heart of the Open WorldCat program is now available in Dutch, French, German and Spanish, in addition to English. People who use a web browser set to one of these languages will automatically see the interface in that language. And any web user can select one of these languages manually once they reach Find in a Library from an Open WorldCat partner such as Google or Yahoo! Search.

These interface changes reflect the growing number of holdings in the WorldCat database contributed by libraries outside the United States. Many of the recent “gold,” or millionth, records in WorldCat were added by non-U.S. libraries.

International coverage added for postal-code library lookup

Postal code information has been added for Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to help web users better identify local and regional libraries that own items of interest to them. These postal codes are in addition to the U.S. and Canadian coverage available in Open WorldCat since its inception.

Amazon.com links also available to international users

Web searchers in Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands who access “Find in a Library” also now have the option to link to Amazon.com to purchase an item they have researched. People in Canada and the United Kingdom link to regional versions of Amazon (amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk, respectively), and those in the Caribbean, Latin American and the Netherlands see a “Buy It” link to amazon.com.

Purchase links not only provide Web searchers an additional option for obtaining materials they need - they also deliver a financial benefit to libraries. Each time a web searcher makes an Amazon purchase that originated from an Open WorldCat link, a portion of the total purchase supports the ongoing development of Open WorldCat to the benefit of all participating libraries.

For more information about the Open WorldCat program, visit http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/.

[OCLC edited by L. Pinsley, OCLC Services Manager, Nylink]