WorldCat Local – The Home Search Page

May 19th, 2009 • Robb Brunansky

One of the first things you notice when you come to WorldCat Local (WCL) is the streamlined home screen. In many ways it is familiar to anyone who has used Google due to a similar look and feel. You are greeted with a simple search entry box and a search button. However, there is more to this page than you might notice initially.

First, notice between the search box and the search button that there is a drop down list. This list allows you to set the limits of your search to Southern’s Library or to expand it to include every WorldCat library in the WorldCat database. By default, we have it set to only search our library, but if you are looking for resources that we don’t have in our library, or you just want to expand your search to see everything that is available regardless of where it is located, you can choose to search libraries worldwide.

Beneath the search box there is an advanced search option. Clicking that link expands the search page so that you can specify if you want to search by keyword, title, author, and so on. It also allows you to limit results to certain formats (books, journals, audio recordings, etc.), certain publication dates, types of content (dissertations, for example), and other criteria.

Three drop-down menus appear at the top-left of the page: Home, Search, and SBTS Library. Clicking on the Home menu will take you to sbts.worldcat.org. You can also use this menu to get help and submit feedback directly to WorldCat (although we would prefer if you would send feedback directly to us at worldcatfeedback@gmail.com).

The Search menu brings up a page with three tabs: Library Items, Lists, and Contacts. Incidentally, these are also the three options in the drop down menu under Search. Searching for library items is basically the same as the regular search on the home page. Searching for lists allows you to find a list of resources someone else created. Perhaps a professor has compiled a bibliography for a course and has saved it on WCL for his students. You can search for that list by name or description. Searching for contacts allows you to find other WCL users who have a WorldCat account.

The SBTS Library menu allows you to sign into your library account on the classic OPAC. It also has a link that takes you directly to information about Boyce Centennial Library on our library web site.

On the top-right side of the page, there are two different “sign in” options. My Account is your library account on the classic OPAC. As this is a beta release, we are still investigating ways to integrate your account information from the classic OPAC into WCL. The WorldCat sign in link allows you to sign in to your WorldCat account if you have one, or to create one if you don’t. WorldCat accounts are free, and they allow you to save searches, create lists and share them with others, tag items, and write reviews.

While streamlined, the home page for WCL also provides many options to help you find the resources you need quickly and accurately. We hope you’ll spend some time exploring these options and let us know what you think at worldcatfeedback@gmail.com.

WorldCat Local Beta

May 18th, 2009 • Robb Brunansky

This week we are beginning beta testing of WorldCat Local, a new online interface for searching Boyce Centennial Library’s Catalog. A quick comparison of WorldCat Local with our current OPAC helps visualize some of the changes that are coming.

Initial Search Page on current OPAC:

Initial Search Page on WorldCat Local:

Search Results on current OPAC:

Search Results on WorldCat Local:

WorldCat Local delivers many enhancements and new features to our patrons, including:

This is a partial list of new features now available in our beta test of WorldCat Local. In the coming days, I’ll post blog entries overviewing these features with tips on how to get the most from them. In the meantime, we hope you’ll spend some time exploring WorldCat Local (sbts.worldcat.org), and then please send us some feedback (worldcatfeedback@gmail.com) on what you like, what worked, what didn’t (it is a beta, after all!), and what could be added or improved.

Alphabetical List of All Databases Now Available

March 20th, 2009 • Robb Brunansky

Today we published a new page on our website that lists all of our current research databases in alphabetical order. Boyce Centennial Library provides access to well over 50 online, research databases, covering subjects such as theology, medicine, current events, history, and many more. Now it is simple to see all the databases that are available for your use on one page. We trust this addition will make our databases more accessible, and perhaps it will even reveal research resources of which you were previously unaware.