OCLC Publishes 2012-2013 Annual Report

Direct to Full Text Report (52 pages; PDF)
From OCLC:

OCLC President and CEO Skip Prichard said that the cooperative’s current work is bold and important and that he is excited about the potential ahead. “Users’ expectations continue to accelerate, driving demand for new services and approaches that are cloud-based, mobile and social. With its new technological platform and cloud-based services, OCLC is well‑positioned and committed to serve libraries in a period of rapid change.”

Selected Facts From the Report

• Libraries’ use of OCLC services in fiscal 2013 generated revenues of $206.6 million and operating  results (loss) of $2.8 million

• During the year, OCLC provided libraries with $16.4 million in credits, primarily for cataloging and resource sharing. In April 2013, the OCLC Global Council, after an 18-month analysis and discussion with members, recommended to the OCLC Board of Trustees that the cooperative gradually phase out the credits and incentives program, starting July 1, 2014

• A beta test of the new FirstSearch discovery interface got under way in February 2013, with migration of approximately 16,500 users expected to begin in 2014.

• On May 4, 2013, the number of holdings in WorldCat exceeded 2 billion. It took the OCLC cooperative almost 34 years, from August 26, 1971 to August 11, 2005, to put 1 billion holding symbols in WorldCat, and only 7 years and 8 months to add the next billion

• At the time of publication OCLC has 16,754 members

• WorldCat currently contains 2.03 billion location listings and 303 billion bibliographic records

• In fiscal 2013, WorldCat grew by 29.6 million records. Libraries used WorldCat to catalog and set holdings for 582.4 million items and arrange 8.9 million interlibrary loan transactions. OCLC FirstSearch service users accessed WorldCat to conduct 28.7 million reference searches.

• WorldCat contains records for more than 18 million ebooks

Direct to Full Text Report (52 pages; PDF)

Filed under: Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Reports