Worldcat
Sometimes the simplest questions asked by graduate or undergraduate students can lead to the most useful information. At the Thammasat University Libraries, staff may hear the question:
What is WorldCat?
Some students may not know the name WorldCat but may have an idea about a big catalog of books and other materials, larger than any single library’s collection.
Our first response would be:
Although it may sound like some sort of cat, WorldCat is fact a union catalog.
Many students may not know what a union catalog is, so it would be useful to include some details, such as:
A union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries.
Most union catalogs used in our time are electronic databases, and the largest of these is WorldCat. WorldCat includes collections from over 70,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories. These all are part of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. As we know, the OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization “dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs”. It was founded over forty years ago as the Ohio College Library Center. This information and other data about OCLC may not be of primary help to students, although of course librarians are familiar with it. Students should be more interested in how many references are available on Worldcat. We may let them know:
At the end of 2017, WorldCat contained over 400 million bibliographic records in 491 languages. This means over 2.6 billion library assets, printed and digital.
It also lists identities, mainly for authors and persons who are the subjects of published titles and the WorldCat persons dataset now includes over 100 million people. This should give students an idea of how far-ranging WorldCat is. For most research projects from academic papers to theses, WorldCat provides more than enough material to get a good start. Students may ask:
What if I find a book I need on WorldCat but it is not in the TU Libraries?
Our answer would be:
Look on the TU Libraries website for our interlibrary loan service.
The student may also wish to know:
Are there any limitations to WorldCat?
We may state:
WorldCat records are put up to date from time to time with libraries participating with it. It is not accurate in an up-to-the-minute way. WorldCat will not tell us if an item is borrowed, lost, being repaired, or moved to offsite storage. WorldCat also does not tell us if a library has more than one copy of any title.
Even so, it is a precious resource for all researchers. Those who need more information about a specific book at a specific library may look up titles at the library’s own website, which should fill out the data already listed in WorldCat. As WorldCat’s website explains:
WorldCat is the world’s largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information…WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. WorldCat grows every day thanks to the efforts of librarians and other information professionals.
WorldCat is especially useful for readers in the Kingdom because it lists books by geographical location, so that we can quickly see whether a book or other item is owned by a library in Thailand, in the ASEAN community, or in Asia. WorldCat results also often include a direct link to the Ask a Librarian help feature of a library’s website. This means if a reader needs more information about a specific item, in addition to our helpful TU librarians, librarians at libraries around the world owning the item should also be ready to offer assistance and information about how to obtain it. If the student wants to know:
Is there a section to leave comments about a book on WorldCat?
We may reply:
On the WorldCat page for items, it is possible to enter a rating and review under the Reviews tab, and contribute information or a book’s table of contents under the Details tab.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)