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WorldCat Discovery beta: APA, MLA and Chicago citations added

July 24, 2015 Author: Jayne DicksonCategories:

 

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This month’s WorldCat Discovery installation on July 23, 2015 included the following new features, enhancements and bug fixes.

The running list of release notes can be found at http://www.cdlib.org/services/d2d/melvyl/public/.
(Note that many of these do not have an impact on Melvyl.)

New Features and Enhancements

  • Added APA, MLA and Chicago citations. Formatted citations are available for cut and paste in the APA, MLA, and Chicago (author-date) styles. The citations are formatted according to the most recent editions of the three styles. Users trigger the formatted citations by clicking the “Sharing and permalink options” button. When the button is clicked a dropdown opens and the user selects “Cite record.”

 

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“Cite record” opens a dialog box that contains the title of the item being cited. The user can choose to copy the citation in one of three styles. When the user chooses a style, the formatted citation displays. The user then copies the citation and pastes it in a document.

 

cite2

After copying the citation, the user closes the dialog box and continues her work with the search results. The next time she wants to cite an item, in the same session, the dialog box will open and automatically display the new citation in the same format as the previous one. In other words, the choice of citation format persists for the user’s session. Formatted citations are not yet available on lists.

  • Improvements to Temporary Lists. Temporary lists have been improved in the following ways: addition of local call numbers and locations; limit of items on the list was raised from 10 to 100.

When you add an item to a list, the system automatically adds to the list all the call numbers and locations for the level 1 library. These are the call numbers and locations from the availability section for your library. The list shows three call numbers automatically with the option to “show more.” The call numbers and locations print when the temporary list is printed. If the “show more” link has been clicked and all call numbers for an item are visible, all these call numbers will print. Currently the call numbers and locations are not added to email.

You can now add up to 100 items to a temporary list. When you attempt to add the 101st item, the system will tell you “Your list is full. Please remove records from your list or clear your list to add more records.”

 Bug Fixes

  • Temporary Location names with parentheses are now displaying. OCLC addressed an issue where the temporary location names that included parentheses were not displaying in WorldCat Discovery. Following the July release, temporary location names with parentheses will appear in the user interface in the availability section.
  • Translating the View Online link on the Search Results screen. OCLC has completed the development to translate the ‘View online’ link on the Search Results screen (in addition to the Side Panel). This change supports libraries that use non-English interface languages.

Before install:

 

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Post install:

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  • Browser back button (on Firefox) issues. OCLC has corrected an issue in WorldCat Discovery when using the Firefox browser Back button. Various reports had indicated that using the Back button caused the system to continue to spin, indicate updating databases or updating results, and the screen would freeze. With the install, the browser Back button will work as expected and go back to the previous screen.
  • Database groups display in Advanced Search. A problem was reported where the list of databases included in an OCLC Service Configuration group did not always match what displayed in the Advanced Search, Databases section. This has been fixed in the July release.

WorldCat Discovery Services (WCD) Description

OCLC is working on major changes to WorldCat Local: a new discovery interface with major functional and design improvements. FirstSearch and WorldCat Local will be merged onto this new platform called WorldCat Discovery Services.

UC WCD Information on the CDL Website

Information on the WorldCat Discovery Services (Beta) for the UC campuses is available on the WorldCat Discovery Beta webpage. This webpage includes

  • Links to the UC campus (and union) WCD-Beta instances where you can test drive the functionality
  • OCLC’s project timeline (e.g., when will UC migrate to the new platform?)