The University of Michigan approached OCLC about managing future operations for OAIster, which has grown to over 19 million records contributed by over 1,000 institutions and organizations worldwide since the service launched in 2002. OCLC welcomed the proposal because OAIster complements the types of resources already cataloged in WorldCat, broadens the scope of collections to include open archives, and reaches millions of information seekers every month through OCLC services including WorldCat.org and FirstSearch.