WorldCat

1
WorldCat

• Notes and search examples

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What is it?

• Literally, WorldCat is the closest thing there is
  to a world catalog - a union catalog of
  libraries from around the world.
• Some numbers more than 58 million records
  contributed by 20K (50K? - LOTS) libraries around
  the world
• This is the way to search the OPACs of all those
  contributing libraries, all thru one interface
  (wow).

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The OPAC of OPACs

• Which means it has records for all the sorts of
  things that libraries catalog
• Books, serials, manuscripts, musical scores,
  audiovisual materials (videos, DVDs, audio tapes
  and other sound recordings), maps, computer
  readable files (Web sites, electronic journals,
  e-books, etc.)
• How is this different from all the databases
  weve looked at so far?

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A tool for all parts of the library

• WorldCat is used by catalogers (heck, without
  catalogers there wouldnt BE any WorldCat -!) and
  ILL staff
• In Reference, WorldCat is great for(lets
  brainstorm)

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A Development in WorldCat

• Holdings Records for serial publications have
  been added.
• Its always been possible to see if a library
  owns a particular journal - but until recently,
  there was no way to tell if the subscription was
  current, or stopped in 1964.
• Now its just like in the librarys home OPAC -
  you can see what years they have.

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OK - Lets do our Toolkit thing

• The UB Libraries staff has done a lot of our work
  for us in terms of the search toolkit for this
  database (what are the truncation symbols, how to
  do phrase searching, etc.) - see
• http//ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/help/first_sear
  ch.html
• Connect, go to Advanced Search what all do you
  see?

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(pause, while you examine it)

• OK, what interesting and different features do
  you see?

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OK try these

• Cookery - is your Subject
• Find some cookery books for your friends Korean
  mother, who doesnt speak English
• Find some cookery books for kids
• Find some books on fast food (whats the best way
  to get books really on fast food, and not food
  you can prepare fast?)

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Found anything cool?

• pause for finding of cool things
• What if you restrict your cookery search to
  material type Maps? Or Musical Scores?!
• Can you find all the cookery books in your local
  public library branch?

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More examples

• Still with Cookery as our Subject term
• Find mystery novels with a cooking theme (hint
  look up mystery in the genre/form phrase index
  Dont stop at just the first display, scroll
  forward. If you want to get all the mystery
  genre phrases, what would you do?)
• Diane Mott Davidson seems to lead the pack in
  terms of these cooking mysteries. How could you
  eliminate this author and just see everybody else?

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Ok, one more (click to reveal each step)

• My professor said I should look at some journal
  - its the British journal of clinical
  something-or-other, I cant remember but she
  said she knows the some local appropriate
  library name gets it
• Take a shot at it, or click to see how.
• British journal of clinical in Title Phrase
• Look up code for library by searching city as
  the city, and keyword from library name
  anywhere
• (its whatever it is)

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When looking at results

• A thing to - well, not beware, but be aware of
  if you use the navigation links they provide, as
  they tell you to do - e.g., say you are looking
  at a record, and want to return to the list of
  results. You click the List of Records link in
  the blue bar above the records display.
• You are popped back into the List of Records
  (results) at the point in the list of the record
  you just looked at. Say I looked at record 8. I
  click the List of Records link. Im back in the
  list - starting with record 8.
• I probably just have hardening of the brain
  cells, but this always puts me rather off
  balance.