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If they don't find the record, they create it in the OCLC catalog, and this new record will immediately be available to all the catalogers of the member libraries worldwide. 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.
Because of international rules, catalog records are often much more difficult to establish today than in the past. That is why nowadays libraries often hire full-time catalogers. Because of the knowledge and the training it requires, cataloging has become a specialty in librarianship.
WorldCat is derived from a concept which is the same for all union catalogs: earn time to avoid the cataloguing of the same document by many catalogers worldwide. When they are about to catalog a publication, the catalogers of the member libraries search the OCLC catalog. If they find the corresponding record, they copy it in their own catalog and add some local information.
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