 
Online Computer Library
Founded in 1967 by Fred Kilgour of Columbus,
OCLC
Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library
service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering
access to the world's information and reducing information costs. More than
50,000 libraries in 84 countries and territories around the world use OCLC
services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.
Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other
information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and
full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries
cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat - the OCLC Online Union Catalog. The
OCLC WorldCat database now has more that one billion entries. The billionth
entry was made on August 11, 2005, by a Worthington Ohio librarian for the book
entitled The Monkees: The day-by-day story of the '60s TV pop sensation.
In The Beginning...
 In 1967, the presidents of the
Ohio College Association founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC)
to develop a computerized system in which the libraries of Ohio academic
institutions could share resources and reduce costs.
OCLC’s first offices were in the Main Library on the campus of
The Ohio State University (OSU), and its
first computer room was housed in the OSU Research Center. It was from these
academic roots that Frederick G. Kilgour, OCLC’s first president, oversaw the
growth of OCLC from a regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an
international network.
Expanding Beyond Ohio
In 1977, the Ohio members of OCLC adopted changes
in the governance structure that enabled libraries outside Ohio to become
members and participate in the election of the Board of Trustees; the Ohio
College Library Center became OCLC, Inc. In 1981, the legal name of the
corporation became OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Today, OCLC serves
more than 54,000 libraries of all types in the U.S. and 96 countries and
territories around the world.
The Dewey Decimal
Classification System
 In 1988, OLCL purchased the Dewey Decimal
Classification (DDC) system. It was devised by library pioneer Melvil Dewey in
the 1870s, and provides a dynamic structure for the organization of library
collections. The DDC is the world's most widely used library classification
system. In the United States, 95 percent of all public and K-12 school
libraries, 25 percent of college and university libraries, and 20 percent of
special libraries use the DDC. More than 200,000 libraries worldwide in 135
countries count on the DDC to keep their collections organized so that their
users can easily locate the resources they need. DDC has been translated into
more than 30 languages. The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system,
devised by library pioneer Melvil Dewey in the 1870s and owned by OCLC since
1988, provides a dynamic structure for the organization of library collections.
About Frederick G. Kilgour
In 1974, the American
Library Association (ALA) awarded OCLC Founder Frederick G. Kilgour the
prestigious Margaret Mann Citation in Cataloging and Classification for "making
the Library of Congress MARC database a practical and useful product." In 1982,
Mr. Kilgour was awarded ALA’s highest honor, Honorary Life Membership, for his
contributions to librarianship, including "the establishment and development of
a practical vehicle for making the benefits of technology readily available to
thousands of libraries."
To honor Kilgour, the
Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology
is sponsored by OCLC Online Computer Center, Inc. and the Library and
Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library
Association. The purpose of the award is to bring attention to research relevant
to the development of information technologies, especially work which shows
promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect of the
publication, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information, or the
processes by which information and data is manipulated and managed.
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