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World’s Most Highly Favoured: Books as Seen by Libraries
World’s Most Highly Favoured: Books as Seen by Libraries
John MacCollEuropean Director, RLG PartnershipOCLC Research
7th International Conference on the
Book
University of Edinburgh
18 October 2009
First Ohio, then the world …First Ohio, then the world …
Frederick G. Kilgour, 1914-2006
1967: OCLC founded by Fred Kilgour
1971: Computerised cataloguing begins
Late 1980s: OCLC extends beyond the US
Today: 140 million catalogue records
69,826 libraries in 112 countries69,826 libraries in 112 countries69,826 libraries in 112 countries69,826 libraries in 112 countries
1,3551,355
55,28455,284
882
882
5,6395,6394,25
34,25
3
1,015
1,015
320320
The OCLC CooperativeThe OCLC Cooperative
1,080
1,080
The OCLC Cooperative: growth since 1998The OCLC Cooperative: growth since 1998
1998
30,000
3,200
64
38 million
668 million
participating libraries
participants outside US
participant countries
WorldCat records
WorldCat holdings
2009
69,828
14,544
112
141 million
1.45 billion
What is WorldCat?What is WorldCat?
A finding aidA finding aid
An authorityA repository for reviewsAn authorityA repository for reviews
A repository for recommendationsA repository for recommendations
How representative is WorldCat?How representative is WorldCat?
36%
1998
2008
50.25%
Percentage of Non-English Records
Total Records
English
French
German
Spanish
Japanese
Russian
Chinese
Italian
Latin
Portuguese
Dutch
Hebrew
1998:37.5 m records
23.9 m
2.3 m
2.2 m
1.6 m
.8 m
.8 m
.7 m
.7 m
.3 m
.3 m
.2 m
.2 m
2008:108.2 m records
55.2 m
6.2 m
12.3 m
3.6 m
2.5 m
1.8 m
2.3 m
1.7 m
1.2 m
.9 m
2.7 m
.7 m
Improving all the time …Improving all the time …
National Library and major consortial catalogues already loaded or in the queue for WorldCat
National Library and major consortial catalogues already loaded or in the queue for WorldCat
Print books in WorldCat (~85 million):year of publicationPrint books in WorldCat (~85 million):year of publication
81 percent
post-1923
Print books in WorldCat (~85 million):country of publicationPrint books in WorldCat (~85 million):country of publication
15.5 million published in
US
Total holdings of the aggregate US-published print book collection, by institution type
Total holdings of the aggregate US-published print book collection, by institution type
The Collective CollectionThe Collective Collection
How many works by Shakespeare made the list?
37.
The Top 1000The Top 1000
How many works by Stephen King made the Top 1000 list?
0, to our surprise. Gunslinger ranked 1080, though.
Which author has the most works on the OCLC Top 1000 list?
William Shakespeare (37). He is followed by Charles Dickens (16) and John Grisham (13).
What work on the Top 1000 list has the richest publication history, ie the most manifestations, as represented by OCLC libraries' holdings?
The Bible, followed by the Haggadah. Divine Comedy was 3rd and the Koran 4th.
If all the Harry Potter books were bundled together, how would they have stacked up?
We didn't bundle them together, but if we had, these books would have ranked 5th on the Top 1000 list (and 1st on the Top Fiction list, 2nd on the Top Children's list). Considered together, 44,976 Harry Potter items are held by libraries.
Which author on the list is most held by OCLC libraries?
William Shakespeare, followed by the US government, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Giuseppi Verdi.
How far down the OCLC Top 1000 list do you have to go to get to a live author?
Jim Davis' Garfield is number 15 on the list. (Four of the 5 top works by living authors are cartoons!)
What is the highest-ranking work by a living female author?
Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. It ranked 146.
What is the highest-ranking work written by any female author?
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, ranks 28 on the list. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is ranked 30, and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice ranks 32.
Who is the most written-about person in WorldCat?
Jesus Christ.
What's the top mystery novel held by libraries?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It ranks 192.
The Top 1000The Top 1000
What activities do librarians think their readers most enjoy?
The Joy of Cooking ranked 269 on the OCLC Top 1000 list. The Joy of Sex did not make the Top 1000 list, or come anywhere close.
The Top 1000The Top 1000
Who was top dog?
Garfield is number 15 on the list. Snoopy is 69.
How about animals generally?
Garfield is the top-ranking animal overall. Moby Dick, at 34, was the second-highest ranking animal. Neither Lassie nor Bambi made the OCLC Top 1000 list. (The Yearling, though, ranked 281.)
What is the top-ranking bird?
Mother Goose was third on our list.
What about plants?
Leaves of Grass ranked 49.
Who is the top monster?
Dr Frankenstein's monster. Ranking 43, he beat both Count Dracula (75) and Edward Hyde (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ranked 141). Shrek didn't make the list.
The Top 1000The Top 1000
What cartoons made it to OCLC's Top 1000 list?
* Garfield, by Jim Davis (ranked 15)
* Peanuts, by Charles Schulz (ranked 69)
* Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (ranked 77)
* Doonesbury, by Garry Trudeau (ranked 88)
* Far Side, by Gary Larson (ranked 115)
* Dilbert, by Scott Adams (ranked 399)
* Fox Trot, by Bill Amend (ranked 773)
When were they written?When were they written?
What languages were they written in?What languages were they written in?
How does the WorldCat list compare to other lists (by critics, teachers, etc)?
How does the WorldCat list compare to other lists (by critics, teachers, etc)?
Of the items on the OCLC list, 13 appear on at least 4 other lists:
Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (ranked 101 on the OCLC list)
Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (ranked 110)
Ulysses, by James Joyce (ranked 134)
Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell (ranked 139)
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (ranked 215)
Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton (ranked 253)
Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (ranked 347)
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (ranked 386)
Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt (ranked 416)
Holes, by Louis Sachar (ranked 515)
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (ranked 527)
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh (ranked 653)
Shipping News, by Annie Proulx (ranked 904)
Name Works about - most holdings
Jesus Christ 140,748
Shakespeare, William 1564-1616 125,681
Lincoln, Abraham 1809-1865 88,170
Clinton, Bill 1946- 78,130
Bush, George W. (George Walker) 1946- 77,303
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald) 1917-1963 74,047
Hitler, Adolf 1889-1945 71,289
King, Martin Luther Jr 1929-1968 67,132
Jefferson, Thomas 1743-1826 66,048
Twain, Mark 1835-1910 65,605
Which historical character is most written about according to libraries?Which historical character is most written about according to libraries?
Some Scottish dataSome Scottish data
Materials in WorldCat most widely held by Scottish institutionsMaterials in WorldCat most widely held by Scottish institutions
• Massie, Allan. 1989. Glasgow: portraits of a city. London: Barrie & Jenkins.
• Lythe, S. G. E., and John Butt. 1975. An economic history of Scotland, 1100-1939. Glasgow: Blackie.
• Niven, Douglas. 1979. The development of housing in Scotland. London: Croom Helm.
• Moody, David. 1986. Scottish local history: an introductory guide. Batsford local history series. London: B.T. Batsford.
• Scotland, James. 1969. The history of Scottish education. London: University of London P.
Most popular materials in WorldCat published in ScotlandMost popular materials in WorldCat published in Scotland
• Munro, David. 1988. Chambers world gazetteer: an A-Z of geographical information. Edinburgh: Chambers. (1,445 institutions)
• Armstrong, Karen. 2005. A short history of myth. Edinburgh: Canongate. (1,420 institutions)
• Gray, Henry, Susan Standring, Harold Ellis, and B. K. B. Berkovitz. 2005. Gray's anatomy: the anatomical basis of clinical practice. Edinburgh: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone. (1,359 institutions)
• Brown, Ivor John Carnegie. 1960. Shakespeare in his time. Edinburgh: Nelson. (1,193 institutions)
• Muir, Hazel. 1994. Larousse dictionary of scientists. Edinburgh [Scotland]: Larousse. (1,140 institutions)
“Rareness is common”“Rareness is common”
System-wide print book collection:
37%
Held by 1
5%
Held by > 100
3%
Held by 51 - 1005%
Held by 26 - 50
20%
Held by 6 - 25
30%
Held by 2 - 5
Data-mining to better understand nature of the “collective collection”
Minimal overlap (books held by X or more libraries (in millions)Minimal overlap (books held by X or more libraries (in millions)
More than 9 million works are held only onceMore than 9 million works are held only once
The Library Long TailThe Library Long Tail
Nu
mb
er
of
Ho
ldin
gs
Items ranked by system-wide popularity
HEAD: Top 10% of WorldCat records (ranked by holdings)
account for 80% of total WorldCat holdings
LONG TAIL: Bottom 90% of WorldCat records
(ranked by holdings) account for 20% of total
WorldCat holdings
HEAD: Small proportion of items account for lion’s share of collecting activity
LONG TAIL: Everything else spread out across Long Tail of diffuse collecting activity
Data-mining to inform strategies/policies aimed at optimizing
system-wide supply & demand for library materials
…Rapid postwar increase in works held many times…Rapid postwar increase in works held many times
0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,0001
91
1-1
92
0
19
21
-19
30
19
31
-19
40
19
41
-19
50
19
51
-19
60
19
61
-19
70
19
71
-19
80
19
81
-19
90
19
91
-20
00
2 to 10
11 to 50
51 to 100
101 to 200
201 to 400
400 to 1000
1000+
Authors associated with the most potentially in-copyright print book manifestations
Authors associated with the most potentially in-copyright print book manifestations
A few conclusionsA few conclusions
• Representativeness is important, however …
• We are readier than we used to be to accept incomplete, indicative data
• The web has created a need for a global library catalogue
• Much of its value lies in what it adds to other ‘gravitationally strong’ websites
• The more attention it gets, the more it self-corrects
• Much of its value today is accidental; it was not envisaged when it was created
• The whole is a record, but the holdings records represent cultural voting – the ‘long tail’ is an important measure of cultural popularity
A few conclusionsA few conclusions
• It has empirical value: these are not just the opinions of teachers or critics – they are community judgements
• What do we mean when we say ‘Find in a library’? Is this contradictory behaviour on the web?
• The ‘collective collection’ is more fragile than we often assume
• Usage data will be the next major measure; will ebooks eventually render ‘purchase votes’ irrelevant?
• Should we measure fluctuations in holdings?
• The most popular book turned into a movie is …?
