Library cooperation the Polish way: toward NUKAT and WorldCat in Poland

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development of library catalogs and the national union catalog in Poland and the inclusion of the latter in OCLC's WorldCat, bringing Polish cultural life from authors to researchers and composers to a worldwide audience. Design/methodology/approach - Two Polish librarians deeply involved in the liaison with OCLC over WorldCat discuss the development of library automation and catalogs in the country, in particular NUKAT, the national union catalog for academic and research libraries in Poland. The article also covers the inclusion of Polish library data in Google Scholar. Findings - There is a wealth of Polish content now available via WorldCat - currently around 900,000 items are available. Practical implications - Makes researchers aware of data on Polish publications that can now be found via OCLC's WorldCat and Google Scholar. Poland is one of Europe's major publishing countries, with around five per cent of Europe's publications a year. Originality/value - Provides an overview of the cataloguing situation in one of Eastern Europe's more recent member states of the European Union.