WorldCat only accepted one bibliographic record per document, unlike RLIN, launched by RLG in 1980, that accepted several records per document, with 88 million records in early 1998. RLG members were mainly research and specialized libraries. RLIN was later renamed the RLG Union Catalog. Its free web version RedLightGreen was launched in fall 2003 as a beta version, and in spring 2004 as a full version.
In the meantime, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400 languages in 2005, from 9,000 member libraries in 112 countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to one billion documents available in these libraries.
In August 2006, WorldCat began migrating to the web with the beta version of its new website 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. RedLightGreen closed its site in November 2006, and RLG merged with OCLC. In April 2010, 1,5 billion documents could be located and/or accessed using WorldCat.
2007 > THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE, A GLOBAL EFFORT
[Summary] The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was launched in May 2007 as a global scientific effort to document all known species of animals and plants (1.8 million), including endangered species, and expedite the millions of species yet to be discovered and cataloged (6 to 8 million). The encyclopedia's honorary chair is Edward Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, who, in an essay dated 2002, was the first to express the wish for such an encyclopedia. Technology improvements made it possible five years later with content aggregators, mash-up, wikis, and large scale content management. The multimedia encyclopedia has gathered texts, photos, maps, sound, and videos, with a webpage for each species, to provide a single portal for millions of documents scattered online and offline. The first pages were available in mid- 2008. The encyclopedia will be translated into other languages with the help of partner organizations.
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The Encyclopedia of Life was launched in May 2007 as a global scientific effort to document all known species of animals and plants.
There are 1.8 million species, including endangered species, and millions of species yet to be discovered and cataloged, probably 6 to 8 million.
This collaborative effort is led by several main institutions: Field
Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological
Laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL).
The initial funding came from the MacArthur Foundation (US $10 million) and the Sloan Foundation ($2.5 million). A $100 million funding over ten years will be necessary before self-financing.