Help me OCLC, you're my only hope...ckhhsssht

October 9, 2007 9:46 AM

How to find the "internet resource" part of a Worldcat listing?

When there's an "internet resource" tag on a Worldcat listing, how do you find where it is? For instance, with this book, which was listed as being accessible on the internet - where's the page or information that shows how to access it online (assuming the user has access to the resource)?

Do a random search and at result 4 and 6, the entries are tagged as internet resource available. But when I click through I don't know how to get to either online. "Narrow your results by format" doesn't do it, and while clicking the editions tab brings up information, none of it seems to lead me to the internet resource promised land.

Even more random search results bring up a book (result #6) with the "internet resource" tag, but no way I can see of getting to it online. You can't pre-sort by internet resource on this search like you can some others (before clicking through to a result), but even then it seems to make no difference. Now and then there's a clear listing that some offering is produced by netlibrary as well as the author, and in that case it's obvious where to go, but the majority of the time I click like mad and hit nothing but air.

I know it must be there somewhere, but I can't seem to find where to click.

posted by sociolibrarian to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Where are you? I'm on campus at a great big university library right now, and worldcat recognizes my IP, so when I look at your example, I see a box right underneath the record that says "Get It", and under that a menu that says:

Services from [my library] for this item: Availability at [my library] | Request via ILL | Search the catalog at [my library] | Ask a librarian | OCLC FirstSearch

YMMV. The thing to do in my case would be to click through to the catalog, but when I do that, I see my library doesn't have an electronic version available, only print. I'm guessing that ebook icon is showing up because some other location way down my results list (and yours) has it online.
posted by clavicle at 10:18 AM on October 9, 2007

I've looked through those results (not those specific ones, but other sets) and at the end of the rainbow there's only an empty metal pot, and I guess somewhere the oclc leprechaun is having a drink and laughing at me.

Thanks for the tip though. At first when I read your comment I figured I must just not have access to the online results - but at the end you didn't have access to them either. So kind of back at square one again, but at least with something of a lead.
posted by sociolibrarian at 10:26 AM on October 9, 2007

And if you have to be in your library to even see how to access to online results...well that kind of defeats the purpose, oclc. Because I've definitely been logged into various libraries (remotely) while using oclc and the problem persists.
posted by sociolibrarian at 10:29 AM on October 9, 2007

All of the ones you've noted have a line "Additional Info" when you click through to the book listing, e.g., this one

http://worldcat.org/oclc/65187312&referer=brief_results

has a table of contents available. I think that's all it means.
posted by srt19170 at 11:24 AM on October 9, 2007

Well, I just finally called them (OCLC) and they don't know what the deal is either. The gentleman I spoke with was unsure about how the internet resource tag is supposed to work. After going through a sample page for a good few minutes he reminded me it's a beta product still but he's going to alert the worldcat team specifically and they are going to look into it and get back in touch with me.

I'll post the follow-up.
posted by sociolibrarian at 12:14 PM on October 9, 2007

Oh crap, I bet srt19170 has it. It's probably just the 856 field that's triggering that ebook icon, which is potentially a big lie because there are lots of records in OCLC with URLs in them that only link to a table of contents at loc.gov. Ought to be 856 with 2nd indicator 0.
posted by clavicle at 12:58 PM on October 9, 2007

I'll pass that specific field information along to them, thanks!
posted by sociolibrarian at 1:00 PM on October 9, 2007

Clavicle was right - it's a service basically available in libraries that gives you internet access to texts and journals.....which otherwise would be available there at the library anyway.

Stupid to me, because isn't the point of it being available on the internet to allow you to not have to go into the library, but I guess at least that solves that.

They need to make it so you can connect through to a resource if you have access to that library. But how can you know, if the only way to see the options is to be in the library. Maybe they'll do something, who knows.
posted by sociolibrarian at 1:59 PM on October 10, 2007

srt19170 was right as well. They seem to be alerted to the issue and say they are looking for better ways to represent things.
posted by sociolibrarian at 2:19 PM on October 10, 2007