OCLC has introduced WorldCat Registry, a one-stop place for libraries, library consortia, library vendors, funders and suchnot to put contact info, link URLs and other “identity” data. Every institution gets its own page—it’s like MySpace but with libraries and minus friends, comments, tacky background images and all the drunken photos. Here’s LibraryThing’s page. We hate being a “vendor,” but there was no category for “The OCLC of Lilliput.”

OCLC is being generous with the entry requirements. Personal libraries* are out, but small institutional ones are not. Their FAQs note “no restrictions prevent a smaller physical entity such as a church library, or a ‘virtual’ entity such as a digital library, from representing itself in the Registry.” So, if you’re on an institutional membership, go ahead and take them at their word—join up!

When you join up, you can give your catalog URL as:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/YOURUSERNAME

Your ISBN and ISSN URLs are:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=YOURUSERNAME
&searchbox=ISBNORISSN&searchType=Books

LibraryThing is not currently listed among their vendors. Until they do, select “other.”

*Which reminds me, we recently had an application by a coven. They were uncertain if they were a family or an institution. OCLC is silent on the coven issue.

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