January 2010 Archives

Now it's easier than ever to find the specific library you're looking for.

A "library type" facet has been added to the "Find a library near you" functionality, so you can narrow your library search results even quicker. Options include choices of:

• Academic Research Libraries (ARLs)


• Academic libraries


• Archives


• Governmental libraries


• Library Networks


• Public libraries


• Schools


• Corporate or Special libraries

Search for your favorite library, through WorldCat.org!

Article-level records for content in the JSTOR Archive are now indexed in WorldCat.org and delivered in WorldCat.org search results. Scholars and researchers will now be able to identify JSTOR resources through WorldCat.org and connect with the full-text content using the authorization provided by their library.

JSTOR is a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive with more than 4.5 million records from 1,000+ academic journals and selected monographs. It includes archives of more than one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.

WorldCat.org indexing of JSTOR metadata helps researchers more easily identify resources in the collection. An authorization is required for access to full-text materials in JSTOR.

Learn more about the JSTOR Archives. >>

Lots of interest around the recent inclusion of library results in the RedLaser iPhone app. We've been playing around with it, too, and made a quick 43 second video of how it works, just in case you don't have an iPhone:

WorldCat.org results are made possible through the WorldCat Search API and WorldCat Registry APIs. More about both of these tools in the Web Services for developers area. Note that right now RedLaser serves up results for books in the U.S. It's not that we (WorldCat) or they (Occipital) don't want to serve up more results for videos, CDs, DVDs, games, magazines--all the content a library offers (no matter where in the world you or your library is)--but they're trying to walk before they run, and run before they fly. We all look forward to flying with RedLaser.

In the meantime, remember the WorldCat Mobile pilot is still available for ANY Web-enabled phone in the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Canada and the US. If your phone doesn't support apps, there is a Web "lite" version that comes up. Plus we're also simultaneously exploring how to make the whole site itself, WorldCat.org, more mobile-friendly so you can have your profile, lists and everything else at hand, in your hand.

Read the Belorussian translation
of this page.

Here's the Top 20 List for December in order of views. Items new to the list are emphasized in italics:

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
2. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
3. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
4. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
5. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
6. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
7. Delphine by Molly Bang
8. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
9. Push by Sapphire
10. Going Rogue by Sarah Palin
11. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
13. Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
14. Cajun Night Before Christmas by Trosclair
15. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
16. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
18. The Sounds of Slavery by Shane White and Graham White
19. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
20. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child

Gone from the list:

Nursing Theorists and Their Work edited by Ann Marriner-Tomey and Martha Raile Alligood
Peace, Love & Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle
Hope's Boy by Andrew Bridge
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by Joseph Gibaldi and the Modern Language Association of America
The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney

If you're a librarian--or you live in the greater Boston area and want to learn more about the "behind the scenes" view of libraries and participate in one of the biggest library conferences in the U.S.--plan to join us at ALA Midwinter 2010 for programs about how WorldCat, WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local can enhance your library's visibility and give you faster, easier access to resources at your library and libraries around the world. These programs were created with a librarian audience in mind, but we always love to hear from library and WorldCat users if you're able to come!

Saturday, January 16
Reaching Consumers through Nontraditional Methods: What Can WorldCat Do for You?
An interactive panel of librarians, library users and industry leaders share strategies of how WorldCat.org helps them reach consumers, researchers, developers and partner organizations through social tools, mobile apps, APIs and more. Speakers include:
• Graeme Williams, a superpatron from the Waltham Public Library
• Jennifer Freidman, Collections Manager and Public Services Librarian at MIT
• Andrew Yu, Mobile platform Manager and Architect at MIT
• Roy Tennant, technologist and co-founder of the OCLC Developer Network
• Cindy Cunningham, director for OCLC partnership programs
• our own Jasmine De Gaia, global product manager for WorldCat.org
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Westin Waterfront, Hancock Room

Single-search Access to Your Library's Electronic Resources from OCLC
Learn how your library can offer single-search access to your print, electronic and digital resources through WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local and WorldCat Local "quick start."
1:30 - 3:30 p.m., Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 162 A/B

Sunday, January 17
WorldCat: New Dimensions in Growth and Quality
Learn how OCLC is building and enriching WorldCat, including synchronization of local library collections and WorldCat, and new metadata management enhancements that increase discoverability of library collections on the Web.
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 157 C

Local Impact--Global Reach: WorldCat Local for Your Library
Hear implementation and usage experiences from librarians who use WorldCat Local. Speakers include:
• Barbara Glackin, Head of Cataloging and Online Catalog, Boise State University
• Nina McHale, Web Librarian, University of Colorado, Denver
• Kari Schmidt, Electronic Resources Librarian and Head of the Electronic Resources Management Unit, American University
1:30 - 3:30 p.m., Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 104 A/B

Register now to reserve your spot at these ALA Midwinter sessions.

The top 5 items added by WorldCat libraries in December are:

1- Signal by Cynthia C DeFelice. Added by 1,924 WorldCat libraries.
2- Over My Dead Body, by Kate Klise and M. Sarah Klise. Added by 1,887 WorldCat libraries.
3- Never Smile at a Monkey: and 17 Other Important Things to Remember, by Steve Jenkins. Added by 1,752 WorldCat libraries
4- Marsupials, by Nic Bishop . Added by 1,727 WorldCat libraries
5- The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat, by Richie Chevat and Michael Pollan . Added by 1,709 WorldCat libraries

Lists of recent items added to WorldCat libraries for the month of December are now available. You can see these lists on your library's WorldCat profile page which can be accessed via the 'Library info' link in the list of holding libraries on the item details page or the library name in the library search results (to search for your library, go to WorldCat.org/libraries).

December stats include:
- 13,053 libraries added new items to WorldCat in December
- Of those, 641 did not have an existing recent items list, so WorldCat automatically created a new list.
- 12,412 existing recent items lists were updated.

This story came to us from NPR via LIS News--one of the many blogs we read in the library bibliosphere, as it is sometimes called.

Initially the post looks like a standard book review of Allison Hoover Bartlett's book, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. You can read more and get an excerpt on the story from the NPR story "Literary Larceny"--which we liked so much we stole the title for our post, too.

But once you read the comments, the WorldCat-interesting-ness starts to unfold. Apparently the FBI used WorldCat in order to help catch literary thieves--and OCLC (the library cooperative who helps maintain WorldCat) created a video in 1990 to tell the tale. The video (VHS) is called "The Omaha Project: A Rare Book Adventure" and is available in more than 546 libraries around the world. The summary is as follows:

Four OCLC staff members and 40 volunteers use [WorldCat,] the OCLC database [,] to help the FBI inventory more than 20,000 stolen rare books and manuscripts allegedly stolen by Stephen C. Blumberg and help locate their possible owners.

How cool is that! WorldCat even helps track down criminals. Who knew?