Monday, November 29, 2010

True Story: Book Found in Our Library!

Sometime in late July one of our online students set about to find a book that was required reading, Uncommon Leadership by Robert D. Kuest. She did a search for it on Google Books(http://books.google.com/) and when she clicked on Find in a Library, guess which library had it? That’s right. It was the Darling Library of Hope International University. Who would have guessed that her own school would have a book required for her class... written by one of our own professors? Even though she was an online student, she lived close enough to campus to come to the library and check out the book in person.

How did Google Books know that our library had this book? For over 35 years we have been cataloging our books with OCLC which allows us to share cataloging records with thousands of libraries worldwide in a database known as WorldCat. Now Google uses WorldCat to help users find books in local (and not-so-local) libraries.

How did Google/WorldCat know that the Darling Library was the closest library to her with this book? Well, that's a Google trade secret.

What if you only want to find books in our library? Tune in next week to learn how you can use WorldCat "Local" to find Darling Library books and online articles with one Google-like search box and write Amazon-like reviews in our catalog.



iPhone users! Did you know that the RedLaser app (used for comparison shopping by reading barcodes with your camera) now includes library listings from WorldCat.org to find books in a library near you?

1 comment:

cashmoney said...

Our library is legit!