Monday, June 18, 2007

WorldCat Lists

WorldCat.org now has list-making functionality! I have been excited to see this feature go in--and now it is available. I did a quick list search for "book" and it looks like 47 lists have already been created since Friday. And judging from the titles and descriptions, people are finding lots of creative ways to use lists. Awesome! I feel like it's like my own personal cataloging ability, powered by WorldCat. I will resist the urge (for now) to go through my entire bookshelf.

A few additional creative uses I'd thought about:
  • I could see bookclubs or reading groups using the list functionality to keep track of what they've already read, and to solicit potential new titles from the members.
  • For the academicians among us, you could load up the required readings from a syllabus into a WorldCat list--students could see at a glance which editions/articles were available at the library, what was checked out already, available as an eBook, etc.
  • Maybe a family could track their library-movie-watching together, through a WorldCat list. Or a teen could post out the coolest sounds s/he has heard from the library's eclectic music collection...
I am sure other people have more ideas, too. How do YOU think you'll use WorldCat lists?

5 comments:

Alice said...

UPDATE: 704 lists have been created since Friday! Now...some lists only have 1 item in them, but others are quite robust and interesting.

Create your own categories, give your public lists a description (for the benefit of the rest of us) and have fun!

Alice said...

In the interest of sharing, here is my own list for marketing, advertising and branding books. There are plenty more great materials out there, obviously.

It just dawned on me, too. You could make lists as a "what else should I be reading" kind of exercise, too.

Or the lists could be especially helpful for community organizations and classes. "Here are the 4 books you will definitely want to read before you show up for your first dog obedience class" kind of thing.

Anonymous said...

Interesting feature... are you looking for comments?

I did a search for Philip Lopate and came up with 18 items. But "select all" only selected the first ten. Yes, I know I can add the next eight items. But if it were a long list, I'd like to expand the list to view-all or at least teh first 100 rather than go page by page.

When I FIRST did the search, I wasn't logged in. I logged in, but WC didn't keep my search, so I had to reconstruct it.

In terms of "what else I should be reading," that is exactly what I was trying to do... not to check out/buy/recommend, but a tickler list.

Then only by seeing the list did I realize that there was an option to change the title from the default. A link, and not a box?
Interesting feature, keep going, I'm just sayin'...

Alice said...

Thanks kgs. Yes yes, ALWAYS looking for comments and suggestions for improvements. User experiences--the good, the bad and the ugly all welcomed either here in comments, through e-mail or through the feedback button on WorldCat itself.

The Web version of the e-mail update is now also available.

Heather said...

I created my first list yesterday, and was very excited about it... until suddenly, after I added my 151st item, it told me that my list was empty. In the summary of my lists it still says that it contains 151 items, but whenever I click on it or try to add something new, it claims to be empty. All that hard work down the toilet. I am really disappointed, especially since I copied the list over from things I'd tagged on Amazon, and deleted the Amazon tags in the process. Now my entire list of things I was planning to read is wiped out. Well, that's my own fault for trusting new technology, I guess.