3 Interlibrary loans with the help of the bookmarklet

October 13th, 2004

Today, I was asked to interloan 3 books. Of course, I wanted to try out the Google/OCLC/OWC bookmarklet, so I found the books on Amazon, clicked the bookmarklet and found all three on Open Worldcat (OWC). The list interface was a bit different, and many more libraries showed up for my state (NY), including (this is very important!) my state library. After a few clicks, all of the books were ordered and will arrive in the morning via federal express. Nothing to it. We have relationships with the two libraries that I used. Relationships are important to me.

Gary and I have gone back and forth on this fully Open Worldcat issue. I think that it is going to be more for librarians than patrons, which is not necessarily a good thing. Even though our patrons may find Worldcat records with Google and/or Yahoo (and the odds are against it, as Gary showed), they won’t know what to do once they find them. The OWC interface links the patron to the catalog record. So what? What next? Does that patron have access to that library? OWC doesn’t say, because it will be unique to the user. Not good.

So, I think that OWC (and the bookmarklets) will be more useful for librarians who are asked to find books to interloan, not from the people that are asking for them.

Rebecca Hedreen of Frequently Answered Questions makes a wonderful point:

“[N]ot all libraries, especially local public libraries and private libraries, have their holdings in OCLC. Libraries can also choose to exclude their holdings from the OpenWorldCat project. In July 2005, libraries who do not subscribe to certain services from OCLC will have their holdings withdrawn from the project. Again, this is most likely to affect smaller public and private libraries.”

“What does this mean to distance students and educators? Don’t rely on technology to do your research for you. Get to know your local libraries, and check to see if they are appearing (and continue to appear) in the results for the Bookmarklet. If not, be sure to check them separately for your desired books. Educate yourself on what resources are available to you”

Well said.

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