Thursday, December 6, 2007

Worldcat.org

The library community is incredibly lazy admirably generous in that it makes its cataloging records available at the site worldcat.org.

Ancient World bloggers can take advantage of this resource by linking into this database when referring to books. An example

Ronald Syme took a dim view of Augustus' exercise of power in his The Roman Revolution.


Following that link provides readers all the information they need to track down a book. It even uses your IP address to list holdings in "nearby" libraries. If the library makes a digital version available, that information is noted as well.

This isn't my idea. I can't remember where I saw it first, but I would give credit if I did.

2 comments:

prying1 said...

Just found WorldCat a few days ago. Great resource site. I just hope that people latch onto it and contribute the bit of knowledge and time for the sites information to grow and grow and grow.

prying1 said...

I should also mention I did find an error concerning an author's name mis-spelled. Took the time to email them for the correction. The database is not perfect yet (as if it ever will be) but little things like that being brought to their attention will help the next guy.

Thanks for posting on this one. I love the site and will be using it constantly.