OCLC partnership with Plum Analytics uses WorldCat to measure impact of research

DUBLIN, OhioSeptember 19, 2013—OCLC has established a partnership with Plum Analytics, an altmetrics organization that develops analytical tools for scholars and researchers, to leverageWorldCat data to help researchers better analyze and measure the impact of their work.

Plum Analytics provides a set of tools and services that capture, aggregate and synthesize the big data created from resources, including journal articles, books, videos, presentations and datasets, to characterize how research is used and referenced in various communities.

Plum Analytics has integrated the WorldCat Search API into its PlumX analytics dashboard to retrieve aggregate library holdings information from the WorldCat database, the largest collection of bibliographic data in the world. Access to this data is enabled by OCLC WorldShare applications, which expose Web services and data for use and reuse by third party partners. Scholars will now be able to see how well their published works are included in the collections of libraries globally to help measure the impact of their research.

This partnership demonstrates OCLC’s commitment to provide broad access to WorldCat data for a wide range of creative uses. OCLC supplies analytics organizations with WorldCat data to help define how collections are being used and to provide researchers and libraries with an extended range of applications that take advantage of the same core data.

Bibliographic information in WorldCat is continuously updated by thousands of OCLC member libraries worldwide. WorldCat represents over 300 million different items and over 2 billion holdings in libraries from more than 170 countries.

“A critical role for academic research librarians is to help research faculty understand and be able to measure the impact of their works,” said Plum Analytics co-founder Mike Buschman. “Giving access to library holdings data for this purpose will expand the universe of that measurement, especially in disciplines where books and book chapters represent a significant proportion of research output.”

“OCLC is committed to releasing the value of WorldCat into innovative applications like Plum Analytics,” said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. “Partnerships like these serve the needs of OCLC libraries and their patrons, which is an important component of participation in our cooperative.”

To learn more about PlumAnalyics and the PlumX application, check the Plum Analytics website atwww.plumanalytics.com.

To learn more about the WorldCat Search API and WorldCat.org partner programs, visit the OCLC website.

About Plum™ Analytics
Plum Analytics is a pioneer in the field of altmetrics, revealing research interest and usage beyond traditional measures. The company helps individuals and organizations that use, fund, support, perform, publish or analyze research obtain a broad-spectrum view of interest and usage in research through both immediate and historical perspectives. Plum Analytics gathers metrics about research from dozens of scholarly sources, media channels and social media tools, and categorizes them into Usage, Captures, Mentions, Social Media and Citations. The complete PlumX Suite of five products delivers research output information based on the unique needs of each type of PlumX user. To learn more, visit http://www.plumanalytics.com.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 74,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC website.