OCLC has signed an agreement with H.W. Wilson to increase the number of full-text journal titles in the H.W. Wilson Select file on FirstSearch from 430 to 800. The titles will be available both on a per-search and subscription basis.
OCLC reports that there are now 12,000 libraries worldwide using the FirstSearch service. More than 150 million searches have been undertaken since 1991.
OCLC has also reached agreement with UnCover for that service to become an ILL document supplier. UnCover is a database of more than seven million articles taken from 17,000 multidisciplinary journals since 1988.
OCLC has recently released OCLC SiteSearch 4.0, a suite of software for accessing remote information sources, including automated library systems from various vendors. The new release will make it possible to search non-Z39.50 resources. It will also be easier to set up a group of databases for simultaneous searching.
Finally, OCLC has announced that Preservation Resources, an OCLC subsidiary, will be scanning over 8,000 microfiches containing 650,000 images to create a digital library for the Early Canadian Online Project. Preservation Resources has digitized other large research collections for the Library of Congress and other research libraries, but this is the largest project with microfiche as the source.
[Contact: OCLC, Inc., 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017; telephone 614-764-6000; FAX 614-764-6096]
