From records to knowledge: how WorldCat and the connected library reshape discovery, AI, and services
Your library holds one of the most trusted sources of structured knowledge in the world: its metadata.
As AI changes how people find information and decide what to believe, trusted, well-structured data matters more than ever. And this year, the way libraries describe and share what they hold took its biggest step in a generation.
We have converted all of WorldCat to BIBFRAME, alongside the MARC that libraries rely on every day, and that work will power the production pilot of Zenith, our new BIBFRAME editor, in early 2027. Through WorldCat Entities, the people, places, and works in those records carry a single shared identity that systems inside and outside the library can use. The collective knowledge of member libraries becomes one global knowledge graph: library linked data at scale, ready for the web and for a new generation of discovery.
So, what does it mean for your library? Join Stuart Edelenbos of OCLC for a one-hour session built for library leaders and the teams who deliver for them.
In this session, we'll explore:
• Why library linked data is now a strategic asset, not just a back-office concern.
• How knowledge graphs are built at scale, without disrupting the MARC workflows your staff rely on.
• What's working in libraries today, with practical insights from real-world experiences.
• What's next for discovery, interoperability, and AI, and the decisions that will help put your library ahead.
Bring your questions! We'll leave plenty of time for live discussion with Stuart, so you can explore what these developments mean for your own library.
You’ll leave with a clear picture of how library data is being reshaped, and the first steps you can take, starting with the records you already have.
Can’t join live? Register anyway. Every registrant gets the recording.
Featured speakers
Stuart Edelenbos is a Product Analyst on OCLC’s Syndeo® team, which builds tailored, localized solutions that work with libraries’ own cataloging standards and workflows. He brings Syndeo’s principles into OCLC’s wider Linked Data strategy, focused on making these capabilities fit alongside existing systems rather than replace them.
Stuart has more than 10 years of experience working with various semantic data models for different domains and use cases. His experiences have taught him that information models are never finished, and that semantically rich data only holds up when it’s grounded in the actual context it came from.
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