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OCLC Support

Can I remove my works from WorldCat?

Answer

OCLC is a non-profit library cooperative, made up of thousands of member libraries throughout the world. Libraries add bibliographic records to WorldCat representing books and other items in their collections. OCLC does not sell books or other items; the actual content of the works is not provided in our database. Only the bibliographic record (metadata/citation) is presented in WorldCat. WorldCat.org enables users to search for a particular work, obtain the basic metadata, and determine which libraries own a copy in their collections.

As part of OCLC’s relationship with our member libraries, we have an obligation to accurately represent the content of their collections in WorldCat. For OCLC to remove the record/citation from WorldCat, all the libraries that own the item need to agree to remove the book from their catalogs and agree not to re-enter the record in WorldCat.

With this understanding, you will first need to contact all the libraries that own your work and ask them to remove their indication of ownership from WorldCat. Once the libraries have done this, contact bibchange@oclc.org to alert us, and we will delete the WorldCat record(s) from WorldCat.

Please note that any removed information can be added back into OCLC’s databases by OCLC’s member libraries at any time as part of their normal operations. OCLC cannot control those actions by its member libraries or ensure that the information will not re-appear if cataloged again following deletion.

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