tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post1658000158723512347..comments2024-03-26T11:22:41.940-07:00Comments on Genea-Musings: SDGS WorldCat PresentationRandy Seaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17477703429102065294noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-29320616861928055282007-04-14T17:44:00.000-07:002007-04-14T17:44:00.000-07:00Well, I'm a library clerk, and I can tell you that...Well, I'm a library clerk, and I can tell you that in answer to the google books and other ebooks that are not part of a library, they are not in there because the holder of those books (like google, ebooks.com, etc.) does not enter them. Worldcat is not a search engine like google that spiders catalogs and gets books they have, individual libraries are members or subscribe to the OCLC (which includes a function for catalogers, if a library already has a book they are trying to catalog, they can download the record and make any minor changes they need to). And not every library is in worldcat either. Small libraries are generally not in there because they can't afford the service, or just choose not to use it if they can afford it. <BR/><BR/>Whole periodicals (such as the register) would be listed, the individual articles depend on whether a library chooses to catalog individual articles or not. And I just checked myself and noticed that the ones who do are history or genealogy themed libraries. But if you see a library has the register, you can go to that libraries catalog and see the specific issues and volumes they have. PERSI is a great source for finding the volume and issue you need of a particular title (but awful for telling you which libraries have it), and then you can take that information and search for a library who has that particular volume/issue. <BR/><BR/>The keyword search on worldcat generally works like the keyword search of your libraries catalog. It searches: title, author, subject headings, and added entries in the catalog record. Worldcat does not contain full text articles, so it would not search the actual text of the book or article. Again, this is where PERSI comes in handy. PERSI is not free that I can find, but it is accessible through Ancestry (and the library version that many libraries have), HeritageQuest (also available in many libraries), and I see that Allen County Library has it as well.<BR/><BR/>I may be a little off on some of this, but this is what I see from my own personal experience. worldcat.org would work fine for someone just trying to find a library that has a particular title. I haven't seen that one is better than the other in that respect, but I happen to prefer the other version simply b/c there is more detail, such as call number schemes for a title by both dewey and LOC classification which could be usefulErinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04437340068078551266noreply@blogger.com