Re: [CODE4LIB] WorldCat as an OpenURL endpoint ?

[Jonathan Rochkind]

IF the user is coming from a recognized on-campus IP, you can configure 
WorldCat to give the user an ILL link to your library too. At least if 
you use ILLiad, maybe if you use something else (esp if your ILL 
software can accept OpenURLs too!).

I haven't yet found any good way to do this if the user is off-campus 
(ezproxy not a good solution, how do we 'force' the user to use ezproxy 
for worldcat.org anyway?).

But in any event, I agree with Dave that worldcat.org isn't a great 
interface even if you DO get it to have an ILL link in an odd place. I 
think we can do better. Which is really the whole purpose of Umlaut as 
an institutional link resolver, giving the user a better screen for "I 
found this citation somewhere else, library what can you do to get it in 
my hands asap?"

Still wondering why Umlaut hasn't gotten more interest from people, heh. 
But we're using it here at JHU, and NYU and the New School are also 
using it.

Jonathan

Walker, David wrote:
It seems like the more productive path if the goal of a user is
simply to locate a copy, where ever it is held.
    

But I don't think users have *locating a copy* as their goal.  Rather, I think 
their goal is to *get their hands on the book*.

If I discover a book via COINs, and you drop me off at Worldcat.org, that 
allows me to see which libraries own the book.  But, unless I happen to be 
affiliated with those institutions, that's kinda useless information.  I have 
no real way of actually getting the book itself.

If, instead, you drop me off at your institution's link resolver menu, and 
provide me an ILL option in the event you don't have the book, the library can 
get the book for me, which is really my *goal*.

That seems like the more productive path, IMO.

--Dave

==================
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Keays 
[tomke...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 8:43 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] WorldCat as an OpenURL endpoint ?

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <rochk...@jhu.edu> wrote:

  
The trick here is that traditional library metadata practices make it _very
hard_ to tell if a _specific volume/issue_ is held by a given library.  And
those are the most common use cases for OpenURL.

    

Yep. That's true even for individual library's with link resolvers. OCLC is
not going to be able to solve that particular issue until the local
libraries do.


  
If you just want to get to the title level (for a journal or a book), you
can easily write your own thing that takes an OpenURL, and either just
redirects straight to worldcat.org on isbn/lccn/oclcnum, or actually does
a WorldCat API lookup to ensure the record exists first and/or looks up on
author/title/etc too.

    

I was mainly thinking of sources that use COinS. If you have a rarely held
book, for instance, then OpenURLs resolved against random institutional
endpoints are going to mostly be unproductive. However, a "union" catalog
such as OCLC already has the information about libraries in the system that
own it. It seems like the more productive path if the goal of a user is
simply to locate a copy, where ever it is held.


  
Umlaut already includes the 'naive' "just link to worldcat.org based on
isbn, oclcnum, or lccn" approach, functionality that was written before the
worldcat api exists. That is, Umlaut takes an incoming OpenURL, and provides
the user with a link to a worldcat record based on isbn, oclcnum, or lccn.

    

Many institutions have chosen to do this. MPOW, however, represents a
counter-example and do not link out to OCLC.

Tom