Recently in WorldCat features Category

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

1- The spire : a novel, by Patricia Cornwell. Added by 1213 WorldCat libraries.
2- 10-10-10 : 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years - a life-transforming idea, by Suzy Welch. Added by 863 WorldCat libraries.
3- Nine dragons : a novel, by Michael Connelly. Added by 845 WorldCat libraries
4- Evidence : an Alex Delaware novel, by Jonathan Kellerman. Added by 809 WorldCat libraries
5- The Scarpetta Factor, by Patricia Cornwell. Added by 783 WorldCat libraries

Lists of recent items added to WorldCat libraries for the month of Oct. 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).

The recent items list for each library now provides a breakdown of different item types by: all new items, new fiction, new non-fiction, new juvenile and new non-juvenile.

October stats include:
- 9,393 libraries added new items to WorldCat in October
- Of those, 490 did not have an existing recent items list, so WorldCat automatically created a new list.
- 8,903 existing recent items lists were updated.

I don't use Facebook a ton. Being a GenXer, I tend to live on email and Twitter. I do enjoy it when I have time, and have re-connected to a bunch of old high school friends and folks who have moved away over the years.

I have noticed, though, that there seem to be a lot of games, polls and memes making the rounds of FB. I haven't played any of the dedicated FB games (like Mafia Wars). I am a gamer, but I tend towards Xbox with my 10-year old. Similarly, I haven't taken advantage of any of the "Which Greek God Are You Most Like?" type polls. Unless I understand the criteria, I'm not interested. I mean, come on... if you're going to tell me I'm more like Circe than Mercury, I need to know why.

I have, however, taken part in a couple of "memes" that friends have passed along. These usually take the form of a questionnaire delivered in a note, which the initiator tags with your name. You are encouraged to answer the question and pass it on to 10, 15, etc. of your friends.

The most recent couple of these I've been invited to reply to involved listing of favorite "Top 10" or "Top 15" things. What I did when responding was to create my replies as WorldCat lists to make them easier to share. You can see my WC lists for "Top 15 movies" and "Top 15 books."

For the "movies" list, I also made sure to add the editions of the movies that had cool "cover" art (although I guess it's "box" art for VHSs or DVDs), and then pointed folks to the "Covers Only" view of that list via the WC List link, as part of my FB reply.

A couple friends commented that they thought it was a much more interesting and helpful way to do a list like this. It was certainly more fun for me. I can even see, from the WC List page for each list, how many other WorldCat users have viewed my lists.

Sharing lists of "favorites" is fun. And WorldCat can add a bit of library flavor to the mix.

Making lists on WorldCat.org is getting to be pretty popular. We currently have over 200,000 of them on the site, with more being added daily. I've done a few of them myself, including a recent one that is simply a copy of the items mentioned in a recent io9 blog post, "Where to start with young adult science fiction." WorldCat lists are great for things like that; keeping track of books that I'd eventually like to borrow from the library and read to/with my son at some point... in the frighteningly-ever-nearer future when he goes from "kid" (he's 10) to "young adult."

With a list like that, it's neat to be able to share it or send a simple link to a friend. WorldCat makes it easy for anybody to do that. Some lists, though, are quite a bit more... well... research intensive. And WorldCat is a great place to work on bibliographies of a much more substantive nature, especially if you want help from others.

A great example of such a list is one being created by the Senior Information Specialist here in OCLC's corporate library. Tam Dalrymple provides the writers and editors on my team with absolutely AWESOME research service for many of the pieces we work on, including some of the OCLC membership reports. But she also works on long-term projects related to the profession as a whole. Tam is currently assembling the list, "Library Users and Non-Users - A Bibliography from the OCLC Library." This is a collection of studies on how -- or whether -- libraries fit into people's information-seeking behavior. Right now Tam is concentrating on published books, reports or dissertations, rather than articles. Currently many of the items focus on library use and users, but one of her goals is to include more studies that start from the perspective of the information seeker.  There are 50 items on the list as of today... worth taking a look if you have any interest in research involving library use.

And... As you can guess from reading that description, this is a work in progress. Tam is actively soliciting idea for additions to the list. If you can think of something, feel free to email her at: dalrympt@oclc.org.

Two great ways to use WorldCat Lists: personal forget-me-nots, and shared, major research efforts. My guess is that there are a lot of other lists on WorldCat that fit somewhere in between.

PS: You can search for others' WorldCat lists by clicking on the "Search" drop-down box at the top of the WorldCat.org screen, and choosing "Search for Lists."