Who Can Use?

The WorldCat Search API is available to employees of qualifying institutions at no additional charge for non-commercial use. Qualifying institutions are OCLC member libraries that contribute to WorldCat* and are visible on WorldCat.org (by having a subscription to WorldCat on FirstSearch or other type of WorldCat.org agreement) may use the API at no additional charge.

Sign up for WorldCat Search API service at http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/content/affiliate/.

(*) Contribution to WorldCat is here defined as maintaining an OCLC cataloging subscription or another agreement to provide a full representation of the library's currently cataloged bibliographic records. Libraries that catalogue in the Dutch GGC (Gemeenschappelijk Catalogiseersysteem) or in the CBS systems of CBS partner organisations also meet the cataloging qualification, if there is also a partnership agreement in place with OCLC.

Not a qualifying library

While the WorldCat Search API only available to OCLC's qualifying member libraries, please note that there other OCLC web services that are available to anyone for non-commercial use. Looking at the list of widgets you’ll see that the WorldCat search box and WorldCat links with embedded searches are available to anyone. You may also be interested in checking out the WorldCat Registry, WorldCat Identities, or low-volume use of the xISBN and xISSN services. The WorldCat Basic API is also available for anyone’s non-commerical use.