[Web4lib] Worldcat sidebar

[Karen Coyle]

Bob Duncan wrote:
>
> Unless I'm misunderstanding what you've said, WorldCat (both Open and 
> FirstSearch) returns old and odd items as well, and both provide the 
> ability to limit by date.  (In FirstSearch WorldCat, the "Limit 
> to:...Year" box; in Open WorldCat the Advanced Search page has a date 
> limit.)
You can limit by date in the advanced search, but the sidebar only gives 
you a few of the dates for limiting. Since the header of the sidebar 
says: "Refine your search" it seems misleading. If you don't see your 
date or author there, you think they aren't in the retrieved set. (There 
should at least be a "more..." somewhere.) And I'm still trying to 
understand how that box gets populated.

Note that the person who posted to the Google Books blog had not used an 
advanced search, and most people will not. In fact, the Worldcat results 
are probably "better" than the Google Books results because a wider 
range of materials was found (dates from 1907 to post-2000) and Worldcat 
does offer refinement. Yet, no one is posting rave reviews about 
Worldcat. Well, at least not that I know of.

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------