200 Million Records

In the latest issue of C&RL News (Nov. 2010), there were a few things of note for me. First, if you are going to put a QR code on your cover, please don't cover it up with an address label! Second, Erin Dorney, young librarian extraordinaire, had another great Job of a Lifetime article - so cool!



This post is about the blurb about WorldCat that appeared on p. 523 of that issue, though. The author (David Free) is pointing out to readers that on August 27, 2010, the 200 millionth record was loaded into WorldCat. That's really great - what an amazing testament to the efforts of catalogers! This quote really piqued my interest, though:

It took the cooperative 31 years, from 1971 to 2002, to add the first 50 million records. The last 50 million were added in just 10 months, from November 2009 to August 2010.

First, where are the other 100 million records? I suppose it's just a mistake, but it leaves out half of the original number. Second, talk about an amazing uptick in uploads - it took 31 years for the first 50 million, and only ten months for the final 50 million? What caused this incredible surge? More member libraries cataloging into WorldCat? A growth in resources? Too many duplicate records?

I don't really know the answer, so I am hoping one of you might, readers. It just seems incredible (and, frankly, a little hard to believe) that that many records were created in that amount of time.