stevejzoo

Page by Steve Johnson, librarian and archivist, including occasional writings, links to software, notes about organizations in which I participate, and matter elsewhere classified. Updated March 8th, 2008.

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Time to close

All things come to end. January 3rd, 2008, was my last day at the Wildlife Conservation Society Library. I began working for WCS in 1979. On January 7th, I started a new job in a natural resources library in Alaska. My new job will take me away from the world of zoos and aquariums. For the first time in more than thirty years, I no longer work with archival records. I have also traded metropolitan New York for Anchorage.

This page began in the late nineties as an exercise in writing html, in preparation for composing the library's page on the WCS intranet. Later, the page became a means to disseminate, in a low volume way, my occasional writings related to zoo libraries and archives and comments on some software tools.

As a result of my relocation, this page will probably go dark within a short time. If a personal web page continues to make sense for me, after I am settled into my new job, I will no doubt revive the page, perhaps at a new address. Until then, happy trails, and Happy New Year.

Steve Johnson

Open Worldcat and Worldcat on FirstSearch

Open Worldcat exposes the OCLC Worldcat database to the entire internet. Previously, only subscribers to an OCLC service could search the Worldcat database. The FirstSearch service provided reference access to the database; other OCLC interfaces provided searching for cataloging and interlibrary loan purposes.

Open WorldCat also has a more up to date interface and features than the FirstSearch interface.

The question may well be asked: Why should a library subscribe to Worldcat on FirstSearch if Open Worldcat is freely available to non-subscribers? The answer lies in the benefits that libraries derive from Worldcat.

Much of the value of the Worldcat database lies in the links it provides between any item listed in Open Worldcat and the holdings of individual libraries.

Worldcat via the FirstSearch interface lists all holdings for every item in the Worldcat database. In contrast, Open Worldcat lists holdings only for those libraries which have purchased a subscription to Worldcat via the FirstSearch interface.

In other words, libraries obtain two benefits by subscribing to FirstSearch. First, the holdings of the library are listed in Open Worldcat. Second, the subscribin library's users have access to the holdings of all libraries via the FirstSearch interface.

There is no absolute answer to the question of whether Open WorldCat is better than Worldcat via the FirstSearch interface. What is better depends on the criteria one wants to use.

Open Worldcat uses a more modern interface and easier downloads of individual citations to bibliographic software such as Zotero and Endnote. For many people, that is reason enough to use Open Worldcat rather than FirstSearch.

FirstSearch, however, offers more precise options for searching and permits easier downloading of large numbers of citations. For example, in FirstSearch one may limit results to dissertations only. That is not feasible in Open Worldcat.

A further wrinkle to the difference between Open Worldcat lies in the behavior of Open Worldcat at the IP address of institutions which subscribe to FirstSearch. These OpenWorldcat searches return all holdings linked to an item, as in the FirstSearch interface.

Subscriptions to Open Worldcat on FirstSearch are the economic underpining of Open Worldcat and the only reason why any library holdings are listed in Open Worldcat. If no libraries subscribed to Firstsearch, there would be no holdings listed in Open Worldcat.

2008 March 8