The Many Faces of WorldCat
These WorldCat faces do have a lot going for them, and, lest we forget that in our Google/Amazon world (both excellent resources for sundry purposes in themselves), I wanted to champion for at least an occasional pit stop on the WorldCat.org website to find the book, music, video, or article information that you seek. So, here I go championing (check out my project for a more detailed overview)…
In addition to WorldCat’s traditional face as OCLC’s Online Union Catalog that is accessible as a searchable database within FirstSearch, WorldCat has a couple of additional faces that are illuminated in OCLC’s WorldCat FAQ:
“The Open WorldCat Program and WorldCat.org are both initiatives designed to make the collections and services of WorldCat-participating libraries more visible on the open Web, outside of the library environment”.
- Open WorldCat is a program that makes a limited subset of the WorldCat database—focused on popular materials—available for harvesting by major search engines as well as bookselling and bibliographic sites. Users at sites such Google and Yahoo! Search discover “Find in a Library” results for particular library-owned items among other results for Web content.
- WorldCat.org is a destination website released in August 2006 and remains in beta. Users search the complete WorldCat database and link to online catalog records and local OPACs. The site also provides a variety of free tools such as a WorldCat.org search box that can be placed on any website and browser toolbars and plug-ins.
By registering at WorldCat.org, users are able to add content to item records in the form of item reviews, notes, or table of contents. Registered users can also make lists. While I haven’t done many (okay, any) reviews, notes, or tables of contents, I have begun to use the list feature a bit in order to create display lists of books that coordinate with storytime plans. You can view the lists that I have created thus far here.
Now, I hear you thinking (neat trick, huh?), why not just go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to read a review or to view or create a list? Well, you could, but by using WorldCat.org for these purposes you have immediate access to the library holdings information for that item (if you don’t see the library nearest you listed, you may want to check to be sure that the library is an OCLC member since only OCLC members’ holdings are reflected in the WorldCat database).
The best part about searching for items using WorldCat.org is the immediate access you have to be able to locate the item in a library; of course, if your local library does not own a copy, then WorldCat.org also makes the Buy it Now and the Buy from Amazon links available.
There’s also a handy interaction between the WorldCat.org website and the URL for each library catalog item so that users can easily jump to viewing the item in the catalog and then return to the item information on WorldCat.org. Lastly, I’d just like to point out that if the one-box simple search is too simple, then be sure to use the advanced search interface. And really lastly, be sure to utilize the faceted browse that will be available once the original search has been executed. This is a great way to narrow down results by author, content, format, language, or year of publication.
To facilitate your own or others’ use of WorldCat.org, OCLC provides users with the option to place a WorldCat.org search box on their own homepage or blog or to download the WorldCat.org search box and install as a browser plug-in. At any rate, OCLC continues to improve WorldCat’s amenities, and, consequently, it is rapidly turning into one cool cat (with many faces).
Awwww…
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