Karen Calhoun: March 2009 Archives

In a Feb. 12 entry on this blog, we announced OCLC's Expert Community Experiment, which creates a wiki-like environment around WorldCat cataloging records so that anyone with an OCLC full cataloging authorization can participate in making records better. The experiment began the week of February 16; it will continue for 6 months. To participate, you need nothing besides your OCLC full level cataloging authorization. More information is available on the Expert Community Web pages.

A month into the experiment, I thought there might be intereest in an update on participation.  Registration for the Expert Community Webinars is breaking OCLC records for participation in our webinars--more than 900 sites participated in the four sessions offered in February. If you missed these, there is another Webinar on March 24 for which you can register. Alternatively, you can visit the Expert Community Web pages and click on the Webinar recording available in the right frame.  

Here are some statistics that suggest that the OCLC cataloging community is becoming more engaged in collectively improving WorldCat. The statistics compare master record improvements during the first four weeks of Expert Community Experiment activity with improvements made one year ago (March 2008).

Besides the brand new Expert Community updates to master records, it seems possible that the experiment is yielding an uplift in database enrichments and minimal-level upgrades as well.