OCLC WorldCat: Watching The Great Database In the Sky Grow

"On average, a new record is added to the WorldCat database every 10 seconds. Watch it happen live..." Watch WorldCat grow

According to the About page:

"WorldCat is the world's largest bibliographic database, the merged catalogs of thousands of OCLC member libraries. Built and maintained collectively by librarians, WorldCat itself is not an OCLC service that is purchased, but rather provides the foundation for many OCLC services and the benefits they provide."

Here's what went into the system while I was typing this entry out:

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The following record was added to WorldCat on 08/10/2005 9:08 PM

Total holdings in WorldCat: 999,502,692

OCLC Number: 61245112
Title: Theological and cultural studies in honor of Simon John De Vries /
Publisher: T. & T. Clark International,
Publication Date: c2004.
Language: English
Format: Book
Contributed by: SAINT PATRICK'S SEMINARY LIBR
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Some impressive WorldCat statistics from the OCLC site:

Between July 2004 and June 2005:

• WorldCat grew by 4.6 million records


• Libraries used WorldCat to catalog and set holdings for 51.9 million items and arrange 9.4 million interlibrary loans


• Library staff and users conducted 34.7 million searches of WorldCat via FirstSearch for research and reference, and to locate materials

Also:

• WorldCat has 57,968,788 unique bibliographic records


• 53,548 participating libraries worldwide use and contribute to WorldCat


• Every 10 seconds an OCLC member library adds a record to WorldCat


• Every 4 seconds an OCLC member library fills an interlibrary loan request using WorldCat


• Every second a library user searches WorldCat using FirstSearch

For us information types, it beats the hell out of the old population clocks that the U.S. Census Bureau still runs for the US and the world.

BTW, for the curious, "According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 08/11/05 at 01:24 GMT (EST+5) is 296,854,475"

local tags: metadata, networks, oclc, population, visualization

Where Baby Circuits Come From

Centuries from now, robot archeologists from future societies will discover these acrobatically inclined figurines made of circuit components at a dig site on the location of a long-forgotten human city, and mistakenly label them as religious fertility icons created by early computer artists during the dawn of the new machine age...

Or. in the words of the co-worker who sent me this origingally, "And for those who've seen Team America World Police, this is nuthin'."

local tags: art, humor, satire

When You Can't Find The WC, Build Your Own...

Instructions from the Doctors Without Borders field manual

"The simple pit latrine is one of the simplest and cheapest means of disposing of human wastes. If well designed and built, correctly sited and well maintained, it contributes significantly to the prevention of feco-orally transmitted diseases."

I'm not sure how you're supposed to download and print these from the Web if you're in a location without plumbing, but then again I suppose that's what satelltie phones are for...

local tags: architecture, curiousities, globalization

Find Out Who's Walking On the Wild Side?

Found this morning on the BBCi while looking for something completely different -

"Sensation Seeking Scale

This questionnaire is designed to test your tendency towards varied, novel and intense senations. This is sometimes known as thrill-seeking or arousal seeking."

Here's the link: Sensation Seeking Scale

local tags: bbc, curiousities, sensation