OCLC WorldCat Live: A New (and Very Cool) Experimental Resource From OCLC Research
I’ve been interested in the accessibility of real-time (or near real-time) data on the web for many years. Three examples can be seen here (global aviation), here (data from ships coming in and out of ports located around the world) and here (Seattle EMS).
For me, this new experimental site from OCLC Research is a grand slam home run. Please allow me to geek out. (-:
Say hello to real time stream of bibliographic data direct from the WorldCat database, it’s WorldCat Live!
In a nutshell, here’s what’s new from OCLC Research:
1. Live library data. In this case, a live stream of records as they hit the WorldCat database.
2. View the data as it streams by or visualize on a map, by format, or by language.
3. The data comes via the WorldCat Live API that was released last month.
4. Many more cool experiments from OCLC Research are available here.
Note: You can view only the data and sort by format, language and year on this page.
How can this type of data be used by the library community? How can real time streams of other data be useful in a library setting?
Thanks to @lorcand and his team for sharing.
Filed under: Data Files, Libraries, News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.