Thing 12: netLibrary and WorldCat

I haven't been a frequent user of netLibrary in the past, but I found it very easy to navigate. I searched for a book on gardening and found a fantastic title on accessible gardening for seniors and the differently abled. Hiyo - netLibary is an additional resource for diversity materials. Since I happened upon a title aimed at the differently-abled, I immediately looked around the interface to see if you could play with the text size of the ebook. No luck - just the usual capability to adjust the text size under the Windows "View" menu. That would be a nice additional feature. Anyway, I found it very easy to browse material and content. I would feel very comfortable showing a customer this resource.

I use WorldCat every single day at work. I have to admit I didn't use it very often before I came to work in Collections, but it is definitely a go-to resource for me now. It is VERY helpful when filling out Request for Materials forms. Just a reminder, though - even though WorldCat shows local owning agencies, that does not necessarily mean those agencies are willing to loan the item through ILL. Customers love to tell us "fyi - Georgian Court owns this," but that doesn't mean they'll end up as the lender!

WorldCat is very helpful in showing information about different editions of titles. And, since the content contains full catalog records from various libraries, you get great MARC record information, which can even include content summaries - a HUGE help for multi-volume titles. That's still a more unusual feature on retailer and vendor interfaces. Libraries are where it's at for bibliographic info, and WorldCat is a great example of a resource that gives better access to superb information.