Thomas J. Watson Library

Description: Learn how to search several thousand library catalogs at once (WorldCat and WorldCat.org), other consortial library catalogs and Google Scholar, to identify citations and find library locations.

Beyond WATSONLINE:          Consolidated Online Library Catalogs

(WorldCat, WorldCat.org, Google Scholar and Google Book searching and links to WorldCat.org, other consortial catalogs)

In this class, we will discuss and demonstrate several consolidated online library catalogs and their uses including two versions of WorldCat, Google Books and Google Scholar as they connect to WorldCat, and a few consortial European catalogs.

What is an online library catalog?  Think of WATSONLINE.  In terms of content, it is best to think of the online library catalog as the electronic equivalent of the card catalog.  In fact, it is much more than that, because it can provide enhanced information about specific works cited, such as tables of contents, chapter headings, etc. as well as functional enhancements like hot links to subject headings, call numbers, authors, etc.  But it is important to understand that most online library catalogs are just that: catalogs, and they do not provide access to the full content of the work cited, most of the time.  This is changing, of course; digital content is increasingly made available directly from the catalog citation, but that is still the exception rather than the rule.

The main uses for other library catalogs are, of course, verification that something exists, and/or it’s correct citation, discovery of related materials, and identifying locations when items sought is not in one’s institutional (or personal) library.

Since the late 1960’s, many libraries have been pooling their online catalog records to form large consolidated electronic catalogs.  The biggest one is called WorldCat, which includes the holdings of over 60,000 libraries in 112 countries, including the libraries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  There are more than 100 million bibliographic records in WorldCat.  WorldCat is a product/service of OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit membership library service and research organization.  OCLC provides access to WorldCat in a number of different ways:

• WorldCat FirstSearch subscription (accessible from a Museum-networked computer or remotely if you have an MMA ID and a patron record in Watson)
• WorldCat.org (available openly on the internet)

These different approaches to WorldCat involve slightly different interfaces, and often

result in different numbers of results.

Here is a brief explanation of the important differences:

WorldCat FirstSearch subscription

OCLC FirstSearch is a suite of searchable indexes and databases offered by OCLC to member libraries by subscription.  WorldCat is one of those databases and we do subscribe.  In fact, it is important to note that libraries who contribute their holdings to WorldCat MUST subscribe to FirstSearch WorldCat in order for their library locations to show up in the database when it is searched by others.

Access to WorldCat via FirstSearch is only on Museum-networked computers, or remotely if you have an MMA ID and a patron record in Watson)

How to access WorldCat:

On the opening first page of the Watson Library portal, click on the WorldCat link in the left hand margin of the page, and then click on “Connect to WorldCat,” or do a title or keyword search for “worldcat” in WATSONLINE and click on the WorldCat link in the record that comes up.

Features of FirstSearch WorldCat:

• Interface provides more easily accessible advanced searching features
• Advanced Searching options are more sophisticated (full Boolean capability)
• Resulting citations are more complete, have fuller information about items retrieved
• Includes auction catalogs
• Interlibrary loan link
• “Host” library highlighted in appropriate record in result set if that library holds item
• Option to search the SCIPIO auction catalog database alone, (records also in WorldCat FirstSearch); option to search Anthropology Plus, and the Index to 19^th Century Periodicals.  The last two, Anthropology Plus and the Index to 19^th Century Periodicals are not included in WorldCat searches, but SCIPIO citations are.  If you opt to search SCIPIO as a “scoped” collection, the search template changes accordingly.

Here is an example of a FirstSearch WorldCat search.  As you can see, the basic search interface provides a template for a guided search and it is recommended that you populate more than one field with search terms if possible.

Example: author: Little; title set in stone

Brief record result list:

• Note the number of items found and the breakdown by format.
• The display is by number of libraries which hold the item.
• Note the “streamer” with the highlighted “Metropolitan Mus of Art” which indicates that the MMA libraries have this item; this streamer is not a link – you cannot connect to the WATSONLINE record from the brief record
• Note, too, that the last item is not at all what we looked for, but has all of the words we searched by in the record, highlighted (to find these, click on the title to see the full bibliographic record; the words are in the contents notes, highlighted, as individual words because we did the search as words, not as a phrase “set in stone” in quotes).
• Note the icons which visually describe the items
• Note the “internet resource” icon which merely indicates, in this case, that there is some information about the book available on the internet; that information is a summary of the contents; we’ll see that link when we look at the detailed record for this item.
• When you click on “Libraries worldwide” you will find a list which defaults to New York State first.  The “Display All Libraries” link at the top of that page brings to you all of the other locations, first in the US and then in other countries.

Detailed record

• click on the title or on “see more details for locating this item” to see the detailed record,
• Once in the detailed version of the record, you can click “Search the catalog at your library” link which automatically performs the search in WATSONLINE and you can then click on the “Request this item” icon to retrieve the book.
• Note the ILL link in the record, which connects you directly with our ILL request interface, asking you for your login and password; once you have provided that, you will see that the ILL request is already filled out with the information provided in the WorldCat record.  PLEASE BE SURE TO CHECK WATSONLINE FIRST BEFORE INITIATING AN ILL REQUEST FROM A WORLDCAT RECORD
• “Cite This Item” links to citations of the item provided by several standard style manuals.  This is very useful in preparing a bibliography.
• The “Find Items About” feature can be unreliable, especially if the linked text includes parentheses, so use with caution.  For instance, in our example SET IN STONE, this link brings you only a few items, and would not be a reliable source for other publications about the Met.
• Note the standard bibliographic features which follow: publisher, year published, description, language, standard numbers, contents, descriptors (subject headings) which are links, notes, etc.
• “Access” provides biographical and publisher information when available
• at the bottom of the record, there are permanent links to subject headings

Advanced Searching in FirstSearch WorldCat:

• click on the Advanced Search button
• you are given a guided search template with more flexibility
• there are no language limits
• you can tailor your search by specific format (serials, videos, etc.) and by other limiting elements (audience, more format types, specific libraries, etc.); this is especially relevant for limiting to dissertations/theses, and to microform or non-microform formats
• use “article” limit to find separately cataloged articles
• use the Rank feather to sort your search

If you know that what you are looking for is a serial, for instance, this can be very useful.

Example: Art News

• search art news as a title phrase (which is the equivalent of quotation marks) and check Serial box
• if you do not check Serial box, the result set is much greater
• if you search by title and not title phrase, your result set will be even bigger because the results will include everything with the word “art” and the word “news” anywhere in the title or subtitle or from other fields in the record.

Expert Search: a google-like search, completely free-form; limits available

Other databases openly available through WorldCat FirstSearch:

• SCIPIO (citations also in WorldCat)
  • Note how the search template is altered when you select SCIPIO
• Anthropology Plus
• Index to 19^th Century American Periodicals

WorldCat.org

WorldCat.org is the internet version of this collaborative catalog.  Libraries who do not subscribe to FirstSearch WorldCat do not show up in either version of WorldCat, even though the bibliographic content does show up; includes auction catalogs.  WorldCat.org also provides different and more flexible functionality, but its intention is to surface items you are looking for if you are a casual internet user, and to connect you to libraries which hold the items.   WorldCat.org includes articles which are not found in FirstSearch WorldCat.

Features of WorldCat.org

• Google – like search template as default option (as well as advanced or guided search)
• fewer language options
• different arrangement and less detail in record (a more “amazon-like” look to record)
• no complex Boolean searching possible
• title phrase search is the default, even without quotes (opposite of WorldCat FirstSearch)
• different indexing structure
• INCLUDES ARTICLE CITATIONS SELECTIVELY, especially from Article First and British Library Serials databases, which are different and not necessarily in WorldCat FirstSearch
• no holdings for libraries which do not subscribe to WorldCat FirstSearch

Access to WorldCat.org

This is an internet resource, accessible from any internet connection (worldcat.org). From the Watson portal, you have the option of connecting to WorldCat.org if you prefer, but keep in mind that you might be retrieving different results because the way WorldCat.org indexes various fields is different from WorldCat via FirstSearch.

Basic Search:

Here is the same example we used before, Little Set in Stone, in WorldCat.org:

• here’s the search box, which is essentially a “free search” box exactly like you would find if you were doing a Google search.
• enter “little set in stone” and you will find it right away, but you will notice that it is among a number of entries retrieved which seem to be completely unrelated (even if you look at “details” you will not necessarily find the words in other fields).  We recommend not using this open search box and using the Advanced Search instead; see below).
• click on Little’s Set in Stone and as you scroll down, you will find the essential bibliographic elements, followed by a list of libraries which have the item.
• if you search little “set in stone” with the title in quotes in the basic search box, your search will be much more focused.
• You will notice that with this search, the recording “Ultimate Blues” was not retrieved, and that is because in WorldCat.org, the title is construed as a phrase even without the use of quotes (opposite of WorldCat FirstSearch)
• because we are searching WorldCat.org from a WorldCat FirstSearch authenticated location, we should be getting the same holdings results we would get if we searched via FirstSearch.
• you can search for holding libraries by country, state, zip code, etc.
• note the link “Search my library” which connects you immediately to WATSONLINE for our locations, call numbers, etc.
• You can also click on “link to WATSONLINE” (“Connect to WATSONLINE” requires two clicks to get through)
• you can narrow your results by format at this point as well.
• You can also broaden your search, by clicking on the author, subject headings, etc.; the author link can be very helpful – click on “little” and you will find much more material which is related to your search (note that we searched the author as “little” without first name, so the material that is being pulled up as related is by other “little”s who wrote on related subject matter as well).
• note the options to link to information about the library holding the item, and in some cases, to ask a question
• You can also click to be connected to Amazon to purchase the item
• Note the other options for saving, commenting, etc.

Advanced Search:

In the Advanced Search, you get a template to the basic search template in WorldCat FirstSearch, which is a kind of guided search, with the option to indicate format, date, audience, etc.

• search “set in stone” and “little” in the appropriate boxes but note that “set in stone” is considered a phrase when in the title box, even without quotes
• note the options for further limiting (format, date, etc.) just like in WorldCat First Search

Links to WorldCat.org from Google Books and Google Scholar

Google Scholar and Google Book Search comprise subsets of the millions of scanned Internet webpages, focused on scholarly material and scanned books.  Google Scholar includes peer-reviewed and other articles, abstracts, technical reports, theses and books.  Google gets this material from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.  JSTOR, the full-text, searchable database of journals to which Watson Library subscribes, also has a collaboration with Google Scholar.

All of you are probably familiar with the Google Book Project.  This is a long term effort to digitize all published books, and began with the collections in 5 major research libraries (Stanford, the University of Michigan, Harvard, New York Public Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford).  The goal of the project is to digitize and make available through the Google Book Search service approximately 15 million volumes within a decade.  Additional Google Books Partner Program members include the University of California libraries, the University of Wisconsin at Madison Library, the University of Texas at Austin, the Bavarian State Library, and on and on. 28 libraries in all, as well as publishers. Some of these institutions are digitizing everything, some only those items which are no longer protected by copyright.  Google Book Search allows you to search for all of the items digitized as part of this project, and provides viewing of the entire document or “snippets” of the document, depending on its copyright status.  A feature of Google Books is a link to WorldCat, and hence, to library holdings.

Here’s how it works:

Perform a Google Book Search as follows.

• Go to the Google Book Search link from Google Advanced Search or link to Google Books from the Watson eresources page
• Click on Google Book Search OR enter search terms in Advanced Search template and then select Google Book Search (howe “metropolitan museum”)
• Note that you can limit your search to those items which are fully digitized (“Full View”)
• The 1^st hit is Winifred Howe’s book, which you will note is available “full view” and you can see it by clicking on the title
• Now, in addition to being able to view the full text, search it, and print it out or move it to your hard drive, you can see in the right hand window all kinds of other possibilities, such as contents, subjects, where to purchase the book, and “find this book in a library”
• Click on this link to connect to WorldCat.org, to see where the books might be
• Limited view or Snippet view items are also listed (unclick “full view”)

Perform a Google Scholar search the same way

• Go to Advanced Search in Google
• Perform the search in the Advanced Search template and select Google Scholar at the bottom, or
• Select Google Scholar first and then enter the search in the basic template
• Search “charles rennie mackintosh Vienna”
• Note the “cited by,” “related articles” and “websearch” links, as well as “recent articles” at the top of the page

Other Important Consortial Catalogs

You can link to some of the other important consortial catalogs for art historical research by clicking on the relevant links on the E-RESOURCES page of the Watson Portal.  The links to these other catalogs are organized geographically as you can see.  Go to the Europe link, and you will see a list of catalogs, some of which we will mention here.  In addition, please note that the catalog including the Bibliotheca Hertziana (http://www.kubikat.org/mrbh-cgi/kubikat_en.pl) includes citations for many periodical articles, and the SUDOC catalog (includes many European (especially French) theses and dissertations.

Artlibraries.net (formerly VKK) (http://artlibraries.net/index_en.php)

This catalog includes holding of 28 primarily art libraries or consortia, most of them in Germany, with representation from libraries in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, the UK, Canada, and the USA (Metropolitan and Getty).

• You can search the entire catalog at one go, or individual catalogs.
• You can choose an English, German, French or Italian template for the search and results screens.
• If you search more than one institution, each institution searched will show up in a list of results – either “no records found” or a link to the catalog entry in that library.
• This resource is extremely straight forward and basically “no frills.”

COPAC (http://copac.ac.uk/wzgw)

COPAC is a consortial catalog of 27 research libraries in the UK, the Consortium of Research Libaries (CURL)

• The member libraries are listed under the link to “curl” at the bottom of the first COPAC page, and then under “members” several times, or by way of the FAQ.
• “Quick Search” and “Main Search” templates are familiar formats.
• The search result lists the holding libraries at the bottom of the citation, with links to the individual locations.
• COPAC has helpful “help” information.

Updated 6/08