CDL Database Transitions

May 9, 2002 Author: CDLCategories:

a. UC-eLinks Goes Public on OCLC

On May 8, 2002, UC-eLinks was made available in the OCLC FirstSearch databases.

Direct Borrowing from WorldCat
UC’s FirstSearch users will now be able to request items via interlibrary services directly from WorldCat and other FirstSearch databases. When patrons encounter a record for which there are no holdings on their campuses, they will be able to use Request on the UC-eLinks pop-up window. By clicking on the Request arrow, they will be taken directly to the interlibrary borrowing Request form where they can request the item from another institution.

Link to Full Electronic Text
There are article full text links in the OCLC databases for those items that have full text available, such as ArticleFirst and ECO.

Caveats for Conference Proceedings
You will encounter some false results when linking to conference holdings in databases such as ProceedingsFirst, because of the nature of these materials. Some campuses have cataloged conference proceedings as books rather than as serials, and vice versa, so that some records appear in CAT and others in PE. For the moment, when searching for these materials, if you do not initially find your item when linked to holdings via UC-eLinks, check in both the Melvyl and Periodicals databases. This problem will be remedied when UC-eLinks points to the new version of Melvyl, where the two databases will be combined.

Members of the Transition Steering Committee (TSC), Users Council, and the campus Request liaisons and campus ILL staff have reviewed a test version of UC-eLinks on OCLC.