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OCLC Support

GPO - U.S. Government Publishing Office

OCLC will use your Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) profile information to create and maintain knowledge base collections in Collection Manager for your government document titles.

Get started

If you need access to Collection Manager (the Metadata tab in the WorldShare interface), follow the steps to Create a Collection Manager account. The instructions will tell you to complete a Request WorldShare Collection Manager form.

An OCLC Cataloging and Metadata Subscription is required for record delivery from the collections listed below. If your library does not have a subscription, see Options for libraries without a cataloging subscription.

Request collection loading

Verify that your collections have not been manually selected

If your institution has manually selected a collection in full, OCLC will not overwrite your selections. Before the initial load of holdings from your provider, we recommend that you verify that the collection has not been manually selected.

Verify that your collections have not been manually selected

Before the initial load of your collections, please:

  1. Sign in to the WorldShare interface at your library's WorldShare URL https://yourlibrary.share.worldcat.org/wms [Replace yourlibrary with your library's identifier].
  2. Navigate to Metadata > Collection Manager and locate the search box.
  3. Select Collections as the Data Type and All Collections as the Scope. Click Search.
  4. Once you have returned the collection in a search, perform one of the following:
    • If the collection is selected in FULL: You will need to deselect it. Our system will not be able to overwrite the collection with the title data directly from your provider. If you have holdings set in WorldCat, de-selecting the collection will remove these holdings. Holdings will be added after OCLC loads the collection (if WorldCat Holdings is enabled in Institution Settings)
    • If the collection is partially selected to reflect a subset of the titles available in the collections: The system will overwrite your title selections and collection data. If you want to preserve the title selections and collection data before OCLC overwrites it, do so before making a request for your collection to be loaded by OCLC. Within your collection, navigate to Titles > More Actions. Use the option to Download titles in local holdings and choose a format to download a spreadsheet of your title data
    • If the collection is NOT selected: Proceed to the instructions How to request automated collection loading

 Note: Once the holdings feed is set up, OCLC will select all applicable collections according to the data received from the vendor.  

Contact OCLC Support

  1. OCLC will use your Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) profile information to maintain your library-specific government document collections. If you are not sure what your GPO depository number is, please contact the Government Publishing Office (GPO) support team: https://www.gpo.gov/askgpo
  2. Contact OCLC Support and provide your U.S. Government Publishing Office details to have automated holdings feeds enabled by sending the following sentence:
    Please create my library-specific government document collections in Collection Manager:
    My WorldCat registry ID is: [number]
    My GPO depository number is: [number]
    

It can take up to one month before your government document collections are active and viewable in the WorldShare interface.

See if your collection loaded

Collection names and IDs

There are many collections in the global WorldCat knowledge base. Use the collection information to help you find the relevant collections. When you search in Collection Manager, try entering a root word and an asterisk (*) as a truncation operator. For example: U.S. Government*

The below collections are available for automatic collection loading:

Collection name(s) Collection ID(s) Demand-driven acquisition collections? Frequency provider sends OCLC data Notes about the collection
U.S. Government Documents - Electronic govdocs.govdocse No Monthly Please verify that your collections have not been manually selected before you proceed to request collection loading.
U.S. Government Documents - Non-electronic govdocs.govdocsp No Monthly Please verify that your collections have not been manually selected before you proceed to request collection loading.

OCLC has divided your titles into two collections: Electronic titles and non-electronic titles. This division allows you to make choices in your settings and customizations per format. For example, you can choose to have MARC records for your electronic collection and for your non-electronic titles output in unique, separate files. Likewise, you could add unique public notes for display in WorldCat Discovery in each collection.

 Caution: Once your collection has loaded, do not add, delete, or update any of the titles within the collection. If there is an issue with the titles selected or missing from your collection, please contact OCLC Support with examples.  

Check the Activity History or search for your collection

We recommend that you wait until your collection is available before you proceed so that all of the settings will be available in Collection Manager.

The amount of time it takes for your titles to be available depends on the timing of your request, how often your provider sends data, when OCLC loads the data, and the place of your institution's data in a queue. The time for the initial loading process varies from about one week to one month.

 Caution: Once you have requested to have your collections selected automatically, do not add, delete, or update any of the titles within the collection. If there is an issue with the titles selected or missing from your collection, please contact OCLC Support with examples.  

To see if your collection has loaded in the WorldShare interface:

  1. Sign in to the WorldShare interface at your library's WorldShare URL (https://yourlibrary.share.worldcat.org/wms [Replace yourlibrary with your library's identifier]).
  2. Navigate to Metadata Collection Manager. Do one of the following:

Configure institution settings

  1. Sign in to the WorldShare interface at your library's WorldShare URL.
    • Replace yourlibrary with your library's identifier: https://yourlibrary.share.worldcat.org/wms
  2. Navigate to Metadata > Collection Manager > Institution Settings.
  3. Configure the following settings:

OCLC Symbol

Verify that your OCLC Symbol is selected

Use the OCLC Symbol setting to verify that your institution's OCLC symbol is selected. Collection Manager uses the symbol displayed here to maintain WorldCat holdings and to output records.

Proxy and Authentication

Enter your proxy information so off-campus patrons are directed through a proxy server

Collection Manager helps you manage patron access to materials by directing off-campus patrons through your proxy server. Collection Manager will prepend your proxy information to catalog links. Both on-campus and off-campus patrons will be given proxy links. Consult the documentation for your proxy server to determine how to configure your proxy settings to ignore on-campus patrons so they do not have to sign in.

You can override proxy information for a single collection within a collection's collection-level settings. See Collection-level settings in knowledge base collections.

Proxy Type

  1. Navigate to Institution Settings > Proxy and authentication > Proxy.
  2. Select Proxy:
    • None (default)
    • EZproxy
    • III WAM Proxy

Base URL

  • EZproxy users:
    • Enter your Base URL. Example of a EZproxy base URL: http://ezproxy.oclc.org/login?url=
  • III WAM Proxy users:
    • Enter the Hostname. Example of a III WAM Proxy hostname: sys.lib.proxy.edu

 Caution: Do not include a space after the Base URL.

Username and Password

(Optional) Enter your Username and Password. Providing username and password information is used by OCLC for de-bugging purposes only.

Allow Proxy for Open Access Collections

Determine whether to allow for proxy use in open access collections.  Once this setting is set to Yes, open access collections will allow users to enable proxy settings at the collection level.  This gives libraries the option to surface open access content with proxy information in mixed collections.

The default setting is No.

 Note: It is possible to update the collection-level proxy settings before enabling this setting.  Once set to Yes, the settings will be recognized and applied.  The proxy settings will be visible, but not applied if the setting is No.  This can be verified in the Sample Title Link.

(Optional) Select to Temporarily disable for WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat.org. 

  • Staff members can use this setting to temporarily disable proxy information for WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat.org link display without impacting MARC records.  If there is a problem with the library's proxy service, this will allow library users to continue to access library resources within the library network.

Reports (WorldCat holdings reports and/or Records reports)

Enable emailed reports

If you enable reports in Institution Settings > Reports,  reports will be available via email around the time when files of records have been output and/or after there are changes to your holdings in WorldCat. When your first report is available, you will get an email from Usage_Statistics@oclc.org with the subject field: "The report [name of report] you requested for [YYYYMMDD]."

You will not receive an email on days when there is no activity. Reports are also available in the OCLC Usage Statistics Portal and they are identical to the reports that come by email. See how to access reports in the OCLC Usage Statistics Portal.

To receive emailed reports:

  1. Navigate to Institution Settings > Reports.
  2. Select Yes to Receive Email Reports.
  3. Enter your cataloging authorization or an admin code. This is a 9-digit number starting with 100. Only one authorization code is needed per institution.
  4. Expand and select the Report Types you want to receive.
  5. Enter the Email Address(es) the reports will be sent to. If you are adding more than one email address, separate each email address with a semi-colon (;).
  6. Modify the Report Format if needed. Options include:
    • HTML
    • Excel
  7. Modify the Receive as settings if needed. Options include:
    • Email Attachment
      • Users will receive the report as an attachment in the format specified above.
    • Hyperlink
      • Users will receive a hyperlink to the OCLC Usage Statistics page. 
  8. Click Save.

  There is not a way to select only certain reports per email. The email address(es) entered will receive all selected reports.

  Many libraries that have collections that output records on an ongoing basis select the Updated Records report. The report will notify you of critical changes like OCLC number merges and the reason you received an updated record even if you have not enabled WorldCat updates.

Choose the instructions that apply to your needs

Get WorldCat MARC records

Enable record delivery in Settings

Collection Manager will output new, update, and delete records as they become available based on your GPO class selection holdings. To enable your institution for MARC record delivery:

  1. Navigate to Collection Manager > Institution Settings.
  2. Expand MARC Records. Select Yes to enable record options.
  3. Compete the settings in the tabs to customize your records as much or as little as desired. For complete instructions, see Configure institution MARC Records settings for knowledge base collections.

Enable record delivery in each collection

  1. Search for your collection using the search box in Metadata tab > Collection Manager.
  2. Click the name of one of the collection to open it.
  3. Open the Holdings and MARC Records accordion.
  4. Set Enable MARC Record Delivery to Use institution setting.
  5. (Optional) Consider using these popular settings:
Deliver records for this collection in a separate file

You have the option to have your file of records delivered in a separate file from other collections.

  1. After you set Enable MARC Record Delivery to Use institution setting, click on the Record Delivery tab.
  2. Change the Delivery File Output setting to Delivery records for this collection in a separate file.
  3. Assign a file name. If you want more than one collection in the same separate file, enter the same file name in both collections. For example, enter "Gov Docs" as the file name within two different government document collections.
Do not include records already held in WorldCat

You have the option to forgo receiving new records for those titles you have already set holdings on in WorldCat. In other words, you can choose to only receive new records for those titles that you do not yet hold in WorldCat.

By default, the Record Output setting "Include records already held in WorldCat" is selected. You must change the setting to forgo receiving new records for those titles you have already set holdings on in WorldCat.

  1. After you set Enable MARC Record Delivery to Use institution setting, click on the Record Delivery tab.
  2. Change the Record Output setting to Do not include records already held in WorldCat.

Download your records

Download your files of records from the WorldShare interface, Metadata tab.

Find information to Understand emailed reports and Understand record processing.

Manage WorldCat holdings

Collection Manager provides the convenience of automatically maintaining your holdings in WorldCat as titles are added, deleted or updated in your collections.

  1. Navigate to Institution Settings > WorldCat Holdings.
  2. Set Maintain holdings in WorldCat to Yes.
    Now that you have enabled WorldCat Holdings in the institution settings, the collection-level setting for knowledge base collections will be enabled by default.

Use collection data with other services

Display full-text links, elevate links from a specific provider, and more.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an added cost to receive MARC records for government documents through OCLC? 

The GPO automatic holdings feed and knowledge base collections are included at no additional cost for institutions with an OCLC Cataloging and Metadata Subscription.  

When is the Cataloging Record Distribution Program via MARCIVE ending? 

The Cataloging Record Distribution Program (CRDP) will end on December 31, 2024. The last record set made available for the CRDP will be sent out in December and include records cataloged in November 2024. 

Will the records I get from OCLC be different than those I received from MARCIVE? 

U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has always cataloged in WorldCat, so the core of the records will be the same. MARCIVE may have applied record customizations for you, but these can also be set up in Collection Manager. Refer to  Customize records (Institution Settings) and Collection-level settings 

Does my library need to be a federal depository? 

Any library can select all titles in the GPO knowledge base collections, or select a subset of titles

Only federal depository libraries can use automatic holdings feeds to select titles matching their GPO profiles. 

Does this service include authority control? 

OCLC does not offer a "traditional" authority control service. However, WorldCat Updates can serve the same purpose by automatically delivering records to you when profiled fields are updated with controlled headings. Refer to WorldCat Updates.

How can I avoid duplicates in my local system? 

The first record delivery from OCLC will contain all new records. 

Consult your system's record import settings for options. Your system could check for matches on OCLC number or GPO item number. 

Consider also deleting previous government document records before loading new records. 

How are OCLC number changes handled? 

OCLC number changes are typically a result of two WorldCat records being merged into one another. 

If you have enabled MARC delivery, merged records held by your library are delivered in merges files, regardless of whether you have enabled WorldCat Updates. 

Refer to  Records in Merges files.

Do I have to set up the automatic holdings feed or can I maintain the collections on my own? 

Federal depository libraries can use automatic holdings feeds to select titles matching their GPO profiles. You do not have to set up the automatic holdings feed, but it can be convenient to have OCLC automatically select titles based on your GPO profile. 

To set up the automatic holdings feed, refer to Request collection loading.

To manually select and deselect titles, refer to Modify a collection to select your subset of titles

How do I tell if I already have the automatic holdings feed set up for government documents? 
  1. Navigate to  WorldShare Metadata Collection Manager Institution SettingsKnowledge Base Data > Data Sources
  2. Choose the Option for Selected data sources only
    •  Note: Do not save this option. 

  3. Once Selected data sources only is selected, the GPO holdings feeds will be listed as govdocs under the setting if a holdings feed is set up. 

Find additional support materials