Welcome to the WorldCat Blog
Welcome to the WorldCat Blog! – a fun spot to read about what’s happening on WorldCat.org and to share cool ways that people are using the site and their libraries.
What exactly is WorldCat you ask?
It is the world’s largest network of library items. WorldCat lets you search many libraries at once to find books, articles, music, videos and more. And helps you locate items in a library near you.
The team here at WorldCat.org is working on new tools and new ways to allow you to make the most of all the resources WorldCat has to offer - to aid your interests, work, and library selections – and to collaborate and share with other WorldCat users. We will be sharing these things with you in this blog and hope that you will share your thoughts and ideas with us as well.
On February 21, 2008 at 6:54 AM Jane said:
I've just discovered WorldCat.org/My WorldCat and am very impressed - I've been working on introducing social/web 2.0 tools in my library and think it's fantastic that OCLC are taking this step and opening up the old WorldCat in this way. Keep up the good work!
On February 21, 2008 at 9:40 AM Laura
said:
Welcome to WorldCat.org Jane! As we move forward with our social and 2.0 tools, we will be blogging about things here and would love to get your thoughts along the way on how we’re doing and any lessons learned you may have to share with us from your activities - Best of luck in your endeavors.
On February 21, 2008 at 11:37 AM Edwin said:
Nice to see you guys start a blog.
Good luck, have fun!
On February 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM barbara trumpinski-roberts said:
UIUC got hooked into worldcat.org and I love it. You guys rock (and I have added your blog to my google reader). Thanks.
On March 6, 2008 at 12:14 PM simonfj said:
Hi Laura,
Does this mean we might see the beginnings of some interactive tools from OCLC? Blogs are OK but there's not not space to have a conversation is there?
Just reading Lorcan's latest where he talks about diffusion and concentration.
http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001556.html
Seems like, if every OCLC staff member ends up having a blog, we will have plenty of diffusion. But so far as concentration is concerned, that requires providing tools where people can get together and actually talk, collaborate and build a reference library. E.g http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/
BTW, There's a little talk in Wikipedia about using the DDC as a way of creating a directory to reference environments like sitepoint (which is for web designers). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_desk
Any chance there is any interest for putting a Questionpoint up at its reference desk? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk
On March 6, 2008 at 5:01 PM Bob Robertson-Boyd said:
Hi simonfj,
This is Bob R-B, I'm on the social networking product team too. I thought I'd jump in and respond to one or two of your points because I think blogs can be a great place for conversation.
We often think of e-mail as an exchange of ideas, thoughts and/or needs. Blogs and the comments posted on them can serve the same purpose. I hope to prove the point with this post, but only our readers can say whether or not I accomplish that goal. Should someone else comment we will certainly have a conversation!
I think too that Lorcan's discussion of diffusion and concentration applies to our efforts here. The contents and comments our blog can be spread throughout the Web via RSS; and aggregators like Technorati will concentrate our writing and that of other bloggers.
Finally, this blog is the second of many interactive features we will see on WorldCat.org. I hope you help us keep the conversation going!