New Working Partnership to Provide Libraries Greater Options and Efficiencies

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - October 13, 2005 -- Baker & Taylor, the leading distributor of books and audio-visual materials and provider of library services, and OCLC Online Computer Library Center, the world's largest library cooperative, today announced a partnership that will offer OCLC cataloging records to subscribers who receive books and audio visual materials from the Baker & Taylor family of companies.

As a result of this ground-breaking partnership, Baker & Taylor can offer a process to libraries that streamlines their acquisition efforts by providing OCLC Cataloging and ensures inclusion in OCLC WorldCat, the world's richest database of bibliographic information. This expanded service offering will be available through the Baker & Taylor family of companies that includes YBP Library Services, J.A. Majors and Libros Sin Fronteras.

Each of the 4 million products in the Baker & Taylor database (including book, eBook, music, DVD, and spoken word formats) will carry a unique OCLC record number. This OCLC number will be available to subscribers of the new service during the acquisition process, eliminating the need to manually search WorldCat for matching records. Once the material ships, the WorldCat database will be updated with the library's holding symbol and an OCLC cataloging record will be provided by Baker & Taylor, tailored to each library's specifications.

"This partnership will greatly benefit our library customers as it will reduce the amount of time required to obtain quality cataloging records and set holdings in WorldCat, while continuing to maintain database integrity in their local system," said George Coe, President, Institutional Markets at Baker & Taylor. "Our customers will immediately see vast improvements in their cataloging fill rate as a result of having OCLC records in Baker & Taylor's cataloging database. In return, all OCLC members will benefit from the ongoing contribution of new release titles in WorldCat by Baker & Taylor and YBP cataloging professionals."

"This partnership with Baker & Taylor allows OCLC to deliver data and services at the users' point of need?in the acquisitions process," said Phyllis B. Spies, Vice President, OCLC Collection Management Services. "OCLC will set holdings in WorldCat automatically for the users of this service, and in partnership with Baker & Taylor we will make the cataloging process more efficient by delivering high quality records along with the library materials. And once the library holdings are in WorldCat, libraries can take advantage of other cooperative services like WorldCat Collection Analysis, Resource Sharing, and the Open WorldCat program, which exposes those records on the open Web."

Libraries must subscribe to both OCLC and Baker & Taylor cataloging services to benefit from this program.

About Baker & Taylor, Inc.
Baker & Taylor, Inc. (www.btol.com) is a global information and entertainment services company that offers books, videos, music, games and services to libraries, educational institutions, and retailers. Based in Charlotte, N.C., the company has been in existence for over 176 years, developing long-term relationships with major suppliers, including book publishers, movie studios, and music labels. Baker & Taylor maintains one of the largest combined in-stock book, video and music inventories in the United States, and services the broadest customer base in the industry. Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Willis Stein & Partners, a leading private equity investment firm.

About OCLC
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, USA, OCLC Online Computer Library Center 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 information costs. More than 54,000 libraries in 96 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services including cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent and preservation services. OCLC and its worldwide member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, making it the world's largest and richest database of bibliographic information. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

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