June 18, 2007
WorldCat.org Adds Ability to Build and Share Lists
WorldCat.org has been enhanced with a new social-networking feature. Users across the Web now can add individual items cataloged in WorldCat to personalized lists. They can group items owned by their library as well as other other WorldCat libraries and can share their lists with friends, colleagues and millions of site users.
Users can add any book, video, article or another item to a list right from its WorldCat record or use the checkboxes and Save to button in WorldCat search results. Library users can build as many lists as they like on any subject and can make lists for every purpose — personal or professional, educational or recreational. Some ideas:
- Movies I want to check out
- Mystery novels I recommend
- Research sources to review for my paper
- Excellent children’s books
- Best CD’s for learning about jazz
Share lists with friends and the world — Lists can be public, allowing other WorldCat users to search for and discover them — or private so only the list author can view them. (A list's privacy is easily changed by following its Settings link.) And a public list can be shared with anyone, regardless of whether they've used WorldCat before. The Share link lets a list author send an invitation via e-mail.
Easy to manage and export — List items can be added or removed at any time, and items can even be copied between lists.
Users can also:
- Reorder a list by title, author, publish date or date added to the list.
- Save a short note for each added item.
- Export a list in CSV (comma-delimited) format. The ability to export a list in common citation styles to bibliographic-software formats, including EndNote and RefWorks, will be added soon.
Users can start making lists now. All they need is an e-mail address to create a free WorldCat account. Let your patrons and customers know about this exciting new feature — encourage them to visit WorldCat.org and sign up!
More WorldCat News
WorldCat profiles have expanded — A WorldCat user's online profile now allows them to provide greater detail about their interests and occupation; link to any WorldCat lists they have created; and link to a personal Web page, RSS feed or instant messaging address. Providing this personal information is optional, and the user can still control the public availability of their e-mail address or their entire profile in the privacy settings for their account.
Export bibliographic citations from WorldCat records — Individual WorldCat records now include the option to export a bibliographic citation for the item. Citations can be saved in two popular formats: EndNote and RefWorks. Look for the Export links next to the Cite this Item link. Enhanced export capabilities will be available soon.
