[Web4lib] Query: union search for online books

[Sarah Struble]

I'm in the midst of WCL implementation at my institution, and feel that 
I can speak to it's strengths and weaknesses re: ebooks to a (small) 
degree. The faceting/limiting options (either from left faceting bar 
after a quick search, or from the advanced search) appear to rely on the 
format information from the MARC fixed fields - so anytime an expedient 
cataloging practice has piggybacked the record for a digitized version 
onto the record for a hard copy format version, there's no way to 
successfully limit to "internet resource" - This is the case in 
displaying local holdings, and I imagine it happens at a far larger 
scale if there is no MARC record in WCL that lists the digital format in 
the fixed fields.

Sarah Struble

Roy Tennant wrote:
> I guess you did have some trouble searching, since these books are clearly
> there:
> 
> Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics
> http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/300734848
> 
> Pygmalion
> http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/263038124
> 
> The Principles of Mechanics
> http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/300605972
> 
> These are probably most easily located by using the simple search box on the
> front page, such as "josiah gibbs elementary principles" and then selecting
> "Internet Resource" as a filter on the left of the search results. In every
> case I had the record within seconds.
> Roy
> 
> 
> On 3/16/09 3/16/09 € 1:34 PM, "Henry Gladney" <hgladney at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Re: use of WorldCat
>>
>> No results match your search for *'ti:Elementary Principles in Statistical
>> Mechanics au:Gibbs, Josiah
>> Willard<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AElementary+Principles+in+Statist
>> ical+Mechanics+au%3AGibbs%2C+Josiah+Willard&qt=facetNavigation>'
>>> 'English<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AElementary+Principles+in+Stati
>>>
> stical+Mechanics+au%3AGibbs%2C+Josiah+Willard&qt=facetNavigation&fq=ln%3Aeng>>>
> '
>>> 'Internet 
>>> Resource<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AElementary+Principles+in+Stati
>>> stical+Mechanics+au%3AGibbs%2C+Josiah+Willard&qt=facetNavigation&fq=ln%3Aeng+
>>> %3E+dt%3Aurl>'
>>> '1850..1910'*.
>> No results match your search for *'ti:Pymalion
>> au:Shaw<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3APymalion+au%3AShaw&qt=facetNavig
>> ation>'
>>> 'English<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3APymalion+au%3AShaw&qt=facetNav
>>> igation&fq=ln%3Aeng>'
>>> 'Internet Resource'*.
>> I also looked for Goethe's Faust in German, and Heinrich Hertz's Principles
>> of Mechanics (english translation) without finding online versions via
>> WorldCat.  For these, Google searches worked, but even they required more
>> effort than would be needed by a good federated search service.
>>
>> BTW, the difficulty experienced with WorldCat led me to provide
>> comment/suggestion feedback to that site's managers.
>>
>> Best wishes, Henry
>>
>> H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
>> (408)867-5454
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:53, Brian Gray <mindspiral at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Are these digitized book records finding their way into WorldCat?
>>>
>>> Brian Gray
>>> mindspiral at gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Henry Gladney <hgladney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In recent years several giant digitizations of (mostly) out-of-copyright
>>>> books have been mounted, some by commercial enterprises and some by
>>>> academic
>>>> institutions.  My relatively cursory Google search has not led me to a Web
>>>> service from which one can mount a search that inspects a large fraction
>>>> of
>>>> these to determine whether or not a book (or a scholarly article) is
>>>> available in digital form.  (I am aware of Google Book Search (see
>>>> http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html ) but currently
>>>> believe its scope to be limited.)
>>>>
>>>> I wonder, has the kind of service been programmed and made available?  (I
>>>> believe that providing it would be a relatively straightforward
>>>> programming
>>>> task.  If not, perhaps some list member will take it on.)   If you know of
>>>> an example, I would be grateful for a pointer to it.  I suspect that other
>>>> members of this distribution list would be as interested as I am.
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes, Henry
>>>>
>>>> H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
>>>> (408)867-5454
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Web4lib mailing list
>>>> Web4lib at webjunction.org
>>>> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
> 

-- 
Sarah Struble
Health Sciences Bibliographer, Hospitality Bibliographer
Mugar Memorial Library
Boston University
771 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

ph:  (617) 353-3714
fax: (617) 353-2084