Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, has announced that it is piloting a new service for libraries that encourage librarians and other interested parties to discover and share information on copyright status of books.

The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry is a community working together to build a union catalogue of copyright evidence based on WorldCat, which contains over 100 million bibliographic records describing items held in thousands of libraries worldwide. In addition to the WorldCat metadata, the Copyright Evidence Registry uses other data contributed by libraries and other organisations. The new service seeks to encourage a cooperative environment to discover, create and share copyright evidence through a collaboratively created and maintained database, using the WorldCat cooperative model to eliminate duplicate efforts.

The Copyright Evidence Registry six-month pilot was launched July 1 to test the concept and functionality. Users can search the Copyright Evidence Registry to find information about a book, learn what others have said about its copyright status, and share what they know. During a later stage of the pilot, OCLC will add a feature enabling pilot libraries to create and run automated copyright rules conforming to standards they define for determining copyright status. The rules will help libraries analyse the information available in the Copyright Evidence Registry and form their own conclusions about copyright status.

The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry beta can be accessed at http://www.worldcat.org/copyrightevidence. OCLC has called for feedbacks on the Copyright Evidence Registry from the library community on the WorldCat.org website at http://www.worldcat.org/copyrightevidence/registry/feedback.