Hey Code4libers,
So our statewide purchase of OCLC's WorldCat Discovery ended this spring and now with the new school year, all the ramifications of this to Interlibrary loan and training the new crop of patrons is now becoming clear. We haven't seen it happen yet, but besides losing our union catalog link (http://wncln.worldcat.org/), the understanding is that if all libraries that don't subscribe will not have their holdings show up in the public display of worldcat.org. (WorldShare ILL will see it, but public patrons will not.) I'm surprised...Is OCLC really going to hide the holdings of those libraries that don't subscribe to OCLC Discovery? Seems kind of odd that a database we all worked together to create would do that...but that is what I understand... Is that yours too?
The biggest issues we are hearing from our Reference and ILL staff is the lost the ability to "auto fill" a request when searching/linking search to worldcat.org. I'm wondering if others in the Code4lib world might have a fix for this issue of "auto filling" the information about an item scraped from public worldcat.org site into an ILLiad request form? Do you have other solutions?
Jill Ellern
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