ER Challenge: Week 6 WorldCat et. al.

1. Well, didn't this work out nicely? I've had on order through SDLN ILL for several weeks now a copy of Pigs Make Me Sneeze by Mo Willems, and just decided today that I'd better try to get it through WorldCat instead. Apparently, getting a copy through SDLN is a no-go.



I'm glad to read in the WorldCat tutorial the hint about using title and author phrase as search options because title and author just use one word for each. Didn't know that before and it surely does explain some odd search results I've come up with in the past. :) We live and learn, don't we? It's also good to get the reminder that WorldCat means "world," not just US, so the user should be sure to use that language limiter, if necessary, which brings up the thought that this could be a good supplementary tool for teachers of foreign languages. Have Spanish students search for books in Spanish, for example, and try to borrow a few. Could be a broadening experience for them.



I used both title and author phrase as search options, limited the search to books (in English only) and received 2 results:

title published by Hyperion = 1190

Paw Prints edition = 1

South Dakota-owned titles floated to the top of the worldwide holdings (as they should), and the first library listed as owning the book is Brookings Public.

LC class descriptor = PZ7.W65535; Dewey class = [E]

Mr. Willems is a pretty prolific fella with 227 total other items listed under his name as an author (166 books, 28 visual [ vt's, etc.], 25 sound, 7 internet, 1 computer program [a cd].

Other books he's written include the wildly successful Knuffle Bunny tales and the Pigeon books (Pigeon Wants a Puppy, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and more), among others.

Clicking in Pigs--Fiction brought up 3170 other items under that subject heading, 2635 in English.

Other info:

Intended audience (ages 4-8, in this case)

Vendor info (Baker & Taylor here)

ISBN #'s

Print option toward top of page is one I always employ when I use WorldCat to borrow, reminds me of where I tried to get the book (and when).

As an aside, several school librarians have appreciated this tool as an authoritative resource for Dewey numbers of books they were trying to catalog.



Clicking on the Almanacs db showed me which 4 almanacs are indexed along with the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. On to OAIster.



2. I selected an article titled "Factors Affecting Mortality of Whitetailed Deer in Eastern SD," written by some SDSU professors and published in 2008. This particular article was published in volume 2 of Human-Wildlife Conflicts. An abstract is available on the screen; clicking the "download" button on the right brought up the full-text article of 13 pp.
which could be printed or saved electronically.