By David Rapp

In what appears to be an expansion of its Direct Request for Articles project, OCLC announced the launch of its WorldCat knowledge base, through which it will be providing one-click access to open-access full-text ebooks and articles in WorldCat Local search results.

The WorldCat knowledge base includes material from large open-access journal sources, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals, PubMed Central, and BioOne, as well as freely available content from the HathiTrust digital repository and the Internet Archive. Notably, open-access material from licensed platforms, such as Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, and Nature Publishing Group will be accessible.

Aiming for single-search
Though the new functionality may not make WorldCat Local the first resource for scholarly researchers, who tend to consult more targeted databases first, it could make scholarly material more easily accessible to those casting a wider net. According to Mindy Pozenel, the director of OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services, the aim is to streamline discovery to a single interface. “Our goal is to provide discovery for all materials held by a library—print, electronic and digital—through a single search,” she said.

Libraries who already have OCLC Cataloguing subscription would receive the new functionality for no additional charge. Each library would be able to choose whether or not to make such open-access material available to patrons via the one-click function, which would provide full-text material to patrons in PDF format.

OpenURL integration is also currently under development, and the capacity to link into the electronic subscriptions from websites outside of WorldCat Local is planned for beta testing in early 2011, Pozenel told LJ.