Abebooks, the world's largest network of independent booksellers, and OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, are linking to provide librarians and their users access to the largest source of out-of-print books on the Internet. Users will be able to link to the abebooks Web site (www.abebooks.com) to source out-of-print, secondhand, and rare copies of the books they are looking for in OCLC's WorldCat through the OCLC FirstSearch service, an online reference service. In turn, visitors to the abebooks web site who cannot find what they are looking for will have the option to find the title in their local library through OCLC's WorldCat.

WorldCat offers more than 48 million bibliographic records-representing library materials in some 400 languages-and continues to grow at a rate of more than 2 million records a year. "OCLC is one of the key players in library resources. Our partnership will allow library users to find rare and out-of-print titles in an efficient, cost-effective way from a reliable source," said Brent James, abebooks CEO.