Open AccessWorldCat and SkyRiver
Author(s) -
Cathy Blackman,
Erica Rae Moore,
Michele Seikel,
Mandi Smith
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
library resources and technical services
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.342
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 2159-9610
pISSN - 0024-2527
DOI - 10.5860/lrts.58n3.178
Subject(s) - bibliographic database , computer science , sample (material) , library catalog , completeness (order theory) , information retrieval , database , world wide web , library science , mathematical analysis , chemistry , mathematics , chromatography
In 2009, a new company, SkyRiver, began offering bibliographic utility services to libraries in direct competition to OCLC’s WorldCat. This study examines the differences between the two databases in terms of hit rates, total number of records found for each title in the sample, number of non-English language records, and the presence and completeness of several elements in the most-held bibliographic record for each title. While this study discovered that the two databases had virtually the same hit rates and record fullness for the sample used—with encoding levels as the sole exception—the study results do indicate meaningful differences in the number of duplicate records and non-English-language records available in each database for recently published scholarly monographs.