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WorldCat Discovery beta: Call to action labels implemented

December 12, 2018 Author: Jayne DicksonCategories:

The WorldCat Discovery installation on December 11, 2018 included the following new features and enhancements.

The running list of release notes can be found at https://help.oclc.org/Discovery_and_Reference/WorldCat_Discovery/Release_notes. (Note that many of these enhancements do not have an impact on Melvyl since we are currently using WorldCat Local and are only in Preview mode for WorldCat Discovery.)

New Features and Enhancements

Additional databases added to the Open Access filter. OCLC is committed to helping users find and access materials they need to succeed. Part of this commitment is growing our partnerships with Open Access vendors. This release features three new databases added to the WorldCat Discovery central index and the WorldCat Discovery Open Access filter on brief results and advanced search:

  • PLOS
  • JSTOR Open Access Books
  • JSTOR Open Access Journal Collection

Call to action labels on detailed record accordions. Labels on the accordions in WorldCat Discovery detailed record displays are now labelled with “calls to action” that describe the action that can be taken. Label changes are:

Filter and sort lists of editions and formats. Advanced researchers seeking to answer questions such as “What languages was this work published in?” can now explore all editions and formats with sorting and filtering options in WorldCat Discovery.

On detailed record pages, users can apply the following filters to the editions and formats list:

  • Library
  • Format
  • Year
  • Language

On detailed record pages, users can apply the following sorts to the editions and formats list:

  • Library
  • Date (Most recent)
  • Date (Least recent)

Editions and Formats information now displays in a table to help users navigate edition content faster, with columns for:

  • Edition
  • Format
  • Year
  • Language
  • Library

The renamed section “Explore Editions and Formats” guides users to discover additional available editions and formats:

Publisher information for each edition will be added in an upcoming WorldCat Discovery release. The library scope defaults to Libraries Worldwide in all cases, and changes to this functionality will also be considered.

 

Bug Fixes

Keyword phrase searches prevent inaccurate journal titles from surfacing in WorldCat Discovery. Users would previously see some incorrect journal titles returned on items that contained some, but not always all, of the words from the journal title. Journal titles are now sent as exact keyword phrase searches (using quotations) to the WorldCat knowledge base, which prevents inexact links from surfacing.

Availability stability improvement. When processing availability for some items with at least one author field that only contained a last name without punctuation, availability did not display on brief results. This has been corrected.

 

WorldCat Discovery (WCD)

OCLC is working on major changes to WorldCat Local: a new discovery interface with major functional and design improvements. WorldCat Local will be replaced by a new platform called WorldCat Discovery.

Information on the WorldCat Discovery (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?)

FirstSearch

In March 2016, OCLC announced it was keeping FirstSearch as a separate product rather than merging it into WorldCat Discovery as originally planned. In July 2018, OCLC visually updated the interface to display “an updated, more contemporary look.” The changes are limited to a restyling of the new interface and do not affect functionality, navigation or site structure.