Category: WorldCat Local (page 1 of 2)

New WorldCat Discovery Interface

OCLC has updated WorldCat Discovery to a new, modernized interface. The new look will launch for OSU Libraries on Wednesday, August 4.  Beginning on that day, if you enter search terms in the WorldCat@OSU search box from the main library page, the results will redirect to the updated version. For more information about the new design, please review items marked NEW and REDESIGNED in the document from OCLC, “Features in the redesigned WorldCat Discovery interface,” or stream this 7:12 video that provides an overview of the redesign.

Please contact Michelle Henley(.77) if you have any questions or concerns.

Coming July 30: OSU Libraries Transitioning from WorldCat Local to WorldCat Discovery

As some of you may be aware, OCLC announced that access to WorldCat Local will end on August 9, 2019. For this reason, OSUL will configure WorldCat@OSU to search WorldCat Discovery beginning the evening of July 30.  WorldCat@OSU is currently the second from the left tab on the main library page search box.

WorldCat Discovery is functionally the same as WorldCat Local, but does include some enhancements. You can continue to search and request materials available from Ohio State, OhioLINK, SearchOhio and via Interlibrary Loan. But in addition, the display uses a mobile-friendly, responsive design. Another feature is the ability to see the availability of alternate formats. For example, a book may be available in both print and electronic formats.  You may also see an indicator that there is a newer edition of the same title.

If you have linked to our instance of WorldCat Local in a LibGuide or online syllabus, please update your links. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Michelle Henley via HUB.

WorldCat Scheduled Maintenance 2/19/17

OCLC has scheduled system maintenance  for Sunday, February 19,  2017 from 2:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. US Eastern Standard Time . 

FirstSearch, WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local (also called WorldCat@OSU) will be unavailable during this time.

WorldCat@OSU, other OCLC services, unavailable for maintenance on 1/29 & 2/5

Sunday, 29 January 2017, from approximately 2 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. US Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5). The following services will be unavailable to members globally at this time: FirstSearch, WorldCat Local  (aka WorldCat@OSU) and WorldCat.org.

Sunday, 5 February 2017, from approximately 12:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. US Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5). The following services will be unavailable to members globally during this time: WorldShare Collection Manager, WorldShare Record Manager, WorldCat Discovery, WorldCat knowledge base, WorldCat Local (aka WorldCat@OSU), WorldCat.org.

Users will see an OCLC ‘scheduled maintenance’ page if they access an affected service during these dates and times.

OhioLINK server moves, OCLC UTF-8 project

Two items that may affect local workflow:

On Wednesday, December 7, several OhioLINK member libraries are moving their library system to hosted (off-site from the library) servers. This will result in their in their catalogs being unavailable for most of the day. The libraries that have reported this move are:

  • Belmont College
  • Columbus State Community College
  • Hocking College
  • Southern State Community College
  • Terra State Community College
  • University of Rio Grande & Rio Grande Community College

Beginning Thursday, December 8, nearly all OCLC services except Connexion will be affected by a 2-week project. Here is the news release from OCLC:

“As part of our commitment to expand WorldCat support for full Unicode characters and scripts, OCLC will begin a 2 week project on Thursday 8 December 2016 to re-index WorldCat for use with all applications and article-level records searchable in WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat.org. When complete, users will be able to search using full UTF-8 characters, resulting in improved, worldwide discovery of non-Latin titles and articles.

During this time OCLC members and their patrons may experience situations where non-Latin titles (particularly Japanese and Arabic) do not appear in search results when searching on non-Latin script data. Searching on Latin script data (if available) as well as identifiers including OCLC numbers and ISBNs will continue to retrieve the items.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience during this time and know that we will publish a follow up alert to notify you when this work is complete.”

FirstSearch will continue to be offered as a separate service

As previously announced, OCLC had originally planned to phase out FirstSearch at the end of 2016 to be replaced with WorldCat Discovery. Based on feedback from users, they have decided to continue to offer FirstSearch in tandem with WorldCat Discovery. It was recognized that FirstSearch and WorldCat Discovery served different types of users and was used for different types of queries.  Below is the announcement from OCLC:

 Librarians have told us how much they value the unique capabilities of FirstSearch®, and we have listened. As a result, FirstSearch and WorldCat® Discovery will continue as separate services. We will continue the full-featured WorldCat searching valued in FirstSearch in a new version of FirstSearch, and we will add these capabilities to WorldCat Discovery.

  • A new version of FirstSearch will deliver the full-featured searching of WorldCat valued by FirstSearch users today.
  • WorldCat Discovery will continue to provide single-search discovery of electronic, digital and physical materials in your collections and in libraries worldwide. In addition to the single search box preferred by many searchers, future WorldCat Discovery will provide the full-featured search experience of FirstSearch for library staff and other expert searchers. WorldCat Discovery will remain the user-facing interface to WorldShare® Management Services.

Both WorldCat Discovery and the new version of FirstSearch will include a modern, mobile-ready interface.

Your library’s collections will remain visible on the websites where many people begin their research, no matter which option you choose.

As OCLC works to deliver critical functionality required in both services, access to the current version of FirstSearch will extend beyond the 2016 calendar year into 2017.

We have modified the plan to transition all FirstSearch and WorldCat Local users to WorldCat Discovery because we understand libraries need to deliver search experiences that meet different user needs:

  • Power searching of the WorldCat database, often used by library staff and expert searchers
  • Single-search-box discovery of electronic, digital and physical library collections for a broader user community.

Many libraries also already have a discovery service but still want to provide detailed searching of WorldCat to support research and a variety of library workflows.

Your library’s current subscription lets you select either the new version of FirstSearch or WorldCat Discovery, implementing the service that best meets the needs of your users and staff.

We will share additional details about plans to enhance WorldCat Discovery and release of the new version of FirstSearch in the coming months. You may wish to monitor the schedule of planned enhancements when it is available and plan your library’s transition for a time when features most important to you are present.

Thank you for your patience as we extend the development timeline for the expansion of functionality in FirstSearch and WorldCat Discovery into 2017 to allow time to develop both services.

More information is available from OCLC’ Next.

Relevancy Ranking Search Results in WorldCat@OSU

When you search a discovery service such as WorldCat@OSU, the results are ranked in a particular, non-random order. Why are some results at the top of the list? Why are other results buried on page 7? How does a user make sure he or she gets back the best, most relevant possible results?

An interesting post by Ryan Regier from June, 2015 entitled “Relevancy Ranking in Discovery Services” compared the different ways he found that results are ranked and displayed by the discovery services  Ebsco, ExLibris Primo,  and ProQuest Summon.

But the relevancy ranking for OCLC WorldCat Local  was not included in that post, and I realized it may be a question our users have.

To answer that, we turn to WorldCat Local Frequently Asked Questions:

Question

How does relevance ranking work in WorldCat Local?

Answer

WorldCat Local determines relevance in the same way as WorldCat.org, but also factors in the holdings of your library to elevate locally-owned items in search results.

There are several components to the WorldCat Local relevance algorithm:

  • The search terms in the author then title fields are weighted first, then the rest of the fields of the record
  • Term frequency
  • Proximity of the terms to one another
  • Recency (more recent items are weighted more heavily)
  • How widely held
  • Locally held items are surfaced to the top of the results if the library chooses this as the default sort 

Regarding the last bullet point, OSU Libraries sorts locally held results in the following order:

  1. OSU Libraries (including materials available at the Health Sciences and Moritz Law Library)
  2. OhioLINK academic libaries consortium
  3. SearchOhio public libraries consortium
  4. All other libaries with holdings in OCLC

And back to the FAQ:

Question

Can my library configure its own relevance algorithm for a WorldCat Local installation?

Answer

No. The relevance algorithm is maintained by OCLC for all libraries that use WorldCat Local. OCLC regularly evaluates and adjusts its algorithm to ensure your users receive the best possible result sets.

Another feature of WorldCat Local (WorldCat@OSU) that can affect the ranking of results is FRBR.  We return to the FAQ:

Question

How does the FRBR algorithm used in WorldCat.org affect a library’s local holdings display in WorldCat Local?

Answer

Items derived from a source work are combined into work sets using the FRBR algorithm developed by OCLC Research. Multiple-language items are placed into their own work sets so that they may be represented separately within the search results… in WorldCat Local, the representative records for the work sets are those items that are the most widely held or the most widely held that are also held by the institution/group.

More information is available from the WorldCat Local FAQ.

 

WorldCat@OSU and Connexion unavailable Saturday

On Saturday, January 3, OCLC has scheduled a technology upgrade to support system performance and reliability. During this upgrade, all OCLC services will be unavailable on 3 January 2015, from 12:01 a.m. to 3 p.m., U.S. Eastern Standard Time (approximately 15 hours).

An alert will be on the library home page notifying users that WorldCat@OSU will be unavailable most of the day.  Users can continue to search our collections using the “Books and More” tab.

If you have any questions or concerns, please submit a request to Hub.

Link Resolver Branding Update in WorldCat Local

The Link Resolver button in WorldCat @OSU is now branded with Find It @OSU. Functionality remains the same, but the new text “Find It @OSU” aligns with the standard text found across all OSU e-resource platforms and replaces the previous, often confusing “Check for Electronic Resources” button.

FindIt2

Clicking the ‘Find It @OSU’ button will allow our users access to articles, ebooks and other electronic content.

Reporting any issues, enhancements, or errors resulting from the Link Resolver should now be reported through the e-Resources Troubleshooting Form in HUB.

 

 

New Feature: Availability Displays in WorldCat@OSU Results

WorldCat@OSU has a new feature: the location, call number and availability of materials in the OSU Libraries can now be accessed from the results list.

In the example below, a search was done using the terms david and goliath.  The first result for a book owned by OSU has an Availability link. Clicking that link expands a box that displays the shelving location and call number, and indicates that the item is currently checked out.

wclavailability

Previously, WorldCat@OSU users needed to click on the individual title in order to check availability.  This new feature reduces confusion and will help users more efficiently browse for resources in our collections.

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