Engaging Users

Links from the local catalog that help the user find more works by the same author through a link to WorldCat Identities, and a link to find the item in nearby libraries through linking to WorldCat.org via the permalink for each item—the OCLC number.

This application using the xISBN web services to help locate ebooks. Provide it with ISBN for a book and it will attempt to find an e-book version of it. For more information on the application and why it was built, see a blog post from the developer, http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2010/07/finding-ebooks.html

Feed Me Some WorldCat lets you track the latest items to be entered into WorldCat through a simple keyword/topic search. It sorts the most recently added items to the top by date, using PHP and OpenSearch. Sit back and get updates on WorldCat through your feed reader.

This application adds a "find similar journals" link to the journal A-Z list as well as a peer reviewed indicator for journals which are peer reviewed. When the Find Similar Journals link is clicked, a new web page opens showing journal titles similar to the one that is being displayed. The code gathers related ISSN from the xISSN web service and then uses these to gather relevant subject headings from the Worldcat Search API. It then uses these subject headings to search for and display other titles that the library has that have similar subjects, allowing users to "Find Similar Journals" to the ones they are browsing.

This script is based on demonstration code which the Developer Network published last year prior to code4lib. The script uses the xISSN service to see what the table of contents RSS feed is for a given journal. If a table of contents feed exists than a link to that feed is added to the screen. The link then takes the user to the table of contents feed for that journal.

This application takes first and last name and returns a list of matching authorized names along with a set of subject headings for the items each author has written. If a non-authorized name is entered, the results will point the user to the main authorized form of the name. When the results are both the name as well as the authorized subject terms associated with the works written by the author are displayed.

Created by WorldCat Mashathon Seattle attendee Wade Guidry, this mash up combines the NYT Best Sellers API and WorldCat.org links. Highlighted on the New York Times FirstLook blog (February 2010), it uses Yahoo Pipes to let Puget Sound library users find New York Times Best sellers for hardcover nonfiction, paperback nonfiction, and hardcover fiction via RSS feeds.

PrimateLit is a free bibliographic database for primatology that relies on the WorldCat Registry for OpenURL recognition. This OpenURL recognition provides full text access to articles for any institution from any location.

Umlaut is OpenURL link resolving middleware that adds functions and services to commercial link resolving software such as SFX. The services also is capable of aggregating third party "know item services" and sharing them with other services such as the library catalog or federated search tool. Umlaut uses WorldCat Identities by extract metadata from the OpenURL or other services and sending it to WorldCat Identities to find more items by the author of the item being viewed.

This actionbox/standalone citation feature, built with the WorldCat Search API, is really popular with UCOL first-year students who are new to citing sources. It retrieves a formatted citation for a book or journal in APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA or Turabian formats. The script is flexible to also use xISSN or xISBN if the OCLC number is unavailable. Downloadable code and documentation of changes are available.

The WorldCat identities Network allows users to explore the interconnectivity and relationships between WorldCat Identities.

The ID Network uses the Identities API, which provides each Identity with up to 10 related identities. Users can easily jump from Identity Network to Identity Network by selecting the name in the Identity Network Map. An Identity can be a person, a thing (the Titanic), a fictitious character (Harry Potter), or a corporation (IBM).  Additionally, the app provides links to WorldCat and Identities for more in depth information for a given identity.

Try it out -

Challenge: Find the Six Degrees of Separation between Jane Austen and Aldous Huxley.

Answer:Jane Austen to George Eliot, George Eliot to Henry James, Henry James to Joseph Conrad, Joseph Conrad to D.H. Lawrence, and D.H. Lawrence to Aldous Huxley

A widget for WordPress that searches WorldCat and returns bibliographic data via the WorldCat Search API and then recombines it with book covers from Amazon, links to previews (when available) in Google Books and reviews from LibraryThing. It displays results in the sidebar of WordPress.