Whois & Analysis for contentdm.org

The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs".

It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center.

OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog (OPAC) in the world.

OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services (around $200 million annually as of 2016).

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories.

A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field.

Research projects can be used to develop further knowledge on a topic, or in the example of a school research project, they can be used to further a student's research prowess to prepare them for future jobs or reports.

To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.

The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge.

Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences.

There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, life, technological,etc.

Information is that which informs.

In other words, it is the answer to a question of some kind.

It is thus related to data and knowledge, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts.

As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.

A community is a small or large social unit (a group of people) who have something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity.

Often - but not always - communities share a sense of place that is situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood).

Durable relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community.

People tend to define those social ties as important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions like family, home, work, government, society, or humanity, at large.

Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties (micro-level), "community" may also refer to large group affiliations (or macro-level), such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities.

Institutions are "stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior".

As structures or mechanisms of social order, they govern the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given community.

Institutions are identified with a social purpose, transcending individuals and intentions by mediating the rules that govern living behavior.