In 2006, Microsoft, while being one of the OCA partners, began developing its own digital library. The beta version of Microsoft Live Search Books was released in December 2006, with a collection of non copyrighted books digitized by Microsoft in partner libraries. The first partner libraries were the British Library and the libraries of the Universities of California and Toronto, followed in January 2007 by the New York Public Library and Cornell University Library. Books offered full text views, with a search by keyword, and could be downloaded as PDF files. In May 2007, Microsoft announced agreements with several publishers, for example Cambridge University Press and McGraw Hill, for their books to be available in Live Search Books. 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. All the digitized books were transferred into the OCA collection of the Internet Archive.
The OCA collection offered one million books in December 2008, and two million books in March 2010.
2006 > THE UNION CATALOG WORLDCAT ON THE WEB
[Summary] In August 2006, WorldCat, a union catalog run by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), began migrating to the web with a version available for free. OCLC was founded as early as 1971 as a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information while reducing information costs. In 2005, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400 languages, provided by 9,000 member libraries in 112 countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to one billion documents available in these libraries. Through the current worldcat.org, member libraries have provided free access to their catalogs, and free or paid access to their electronic resources: books, audiobooks, abstracts and full-text articles, photos, music CDs, and videos. In April 2010, 1,5 billion documents could be located and/or accessed using WorldCat. The other main union catalog was run by RLG (Research Librairies Group), that merged with OCLC in November 2006.
***
In August 2006, WorldCat, a union catalog run by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), began migrating to the web with a version available for free.
WorldCat followed the steps of RLG (Research Libraries Group), that launched the free web version of the RLG Union Catalog, called RedLightGreen, in fall 2003, with a full version available in spring 2004.
OCLC and RLG were running the two largest union catalogs in the world.
What exactly is a union catalog? The idea behind a union catalog is to earn time by avoiding the cataloging of the same document by many catalogers worldwide. When catalogers of a member library (paid subscription) process a new document, they first search the union catalog. If the record is available, they import it into their own catalog and add the local data. If the record is not available, they create it in their own catalog and export it into the union catalog, for the new record to be instantly available to all catalogers of member libraries. Depending on their status and experience, member libraries can either import records only, or both import and export records.
OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) was created in 1971 as a non- profit organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information while reducing information costs. The OCLC Online Union Catalog, later renamed WorldCat, was first the union catalog of the university libraries in the State of Ohio, before becoming a national library cooperative and then an organization spreading worldwide, with WorldCat becoming one of the two largest union catalogs in the world (the other one being RLIN). In early 1998, WorldCat had 38 million records in 400 languages, and 27,000 member libraries in 65 countries, with 2 million records added annually.