ews and can be downloaded in PDF files. In the
future, Microsoft intends to add copyrighted works with the permission
of their publishers. In May 2007, Microsoft announced agreements with
several main publishers, including Cambridge University Press and
McGraw Hill. After digitizing 750,000 books and indexing 80 million
journal articles, Microsoft ended the Live Search Books program in May
2008 and closed the website.

2006: FREE WORLDCAT

[Overview]

WorldCat was created in 1971 by the non-profit OCLC (Online Computer
Library Center) as the union catalog of the university libraries in the
State of Ohio. Over the years, OCLC became a national and worldwide
library cooperative, and WorldCat the largest library catalog in the
world. In 2005, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400
languages from 9,000 member libraries (paid subscription) in 112
countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to 1
billion documents available in these libraries. In August 2006,
WorldCat began to migrate to the web through the beta version of the
new website WorldCat.org. Member libraries now provide free access to
their catalogs and electronic resources: books, audio books, abstracts
and full-text articles, photos, music CDs and videos. Another pioneer
site was RedLightGreen, launched in Spring 2004 (with a beta version in
Fall 2003) as the web version of the RLG Union Catalog, another major
union catalog created in 1980 by the Research Libraries Group (RLG).
RedLightGreen ended its service in November 2006, after a successful
3-year run, and RLG joined OCLC.

[In Depth (published in 1999)]

In 1998, two organizations - OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) and
RLIN (Research Library Information Network) - were running
international bibliographical databases through the internet.

The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a non-profit, membership,
library computer service and research organization dedicated to
furthering access to the world's information and reducing information
costs. More than 27,000 libraries in 65 countries were using OCLC
services to manage their collections and to provide online reference
services. The website was available in English, Chinese, French,
German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

OCLC services included: access services; collections and technical
services; reference services; resource sharing; Dewey Decimal
Classification (published by OCLC Forest Press); and prese