Today, thanks to the SLAV blog, I found out about WorldCat – an international catalogue of library books. You sign up, choose your favourite libraries, and then with one click you can search them all to see who’s got an item you want. For people living in remote areas, this is a boon because you can then request an inter-library loan. For all of us, it makes finding the obscure title just a little bit easier.
Many fine Australian titles are no longer supported by a backlist in the shops, and they’re often not easy to find in libraries either. It’s also not easy to locate classics, except for the very popular ones. An example is Eve Langley’s The Pea Pickers, which was discussed on the Australian Literature e-reading group some time ago. It took me ages to search my local libraries (Kingston where I live, Casey-Cardinia where I work, and Glen Eira and Bayside where I shop), only to find that none of them had it. Or so I thought. WorldCat took no time at all to find that this book can be found as far afield as Hong Kong and France, and that Bayside does have it. It also says that Kingston has it, but when I followed the link to the Kingston site it turns out that they don’t, so WorldCat’s not perfect.) If I had known about WorldCat back when I wanted this book, I could have tracked down a copy instead of buying one from BiblioOz.
WorldCat also showed me (to my delight) that my little book called Indonesia is in at least 24 Australian libraries, and my Word Puzzles for the Indonesian Classroom series is still in circulation in various universities. (I know there’s still plenty of them in schools, because I get a nice cheque every now and again from CAL and ELR.) WorldCat enables you to save favourites in a List, and I have imaginatively called mine, Books by Lisa Hill. I am only a very minor author – a very small fish in the very small pond of writers catering for the teaching of Indonesian - but I still get a buzz out of seeing my name on the front cover and finding my books in library catalogues!
WorldCat lets you set up all kinds of lists, select favourite libraries, watch other people’s lists, write reviews and so on. It’s fabulous!
Thanks for the comment on the Bright Ideas blog and your enthusiasm for Worldcat. Would love to feature your work again on Bright Ideas, please let me know if you can write another piece.
By: Judith on January 31, 2009
at 2:26 pm
Lisa, have you seen the SLAV Readers Cup blog? http://readerscup.globalteacher.org.au There are activities for years 5 and 6 and hopefully we will cater for years 5 and 6 in the statewide comp next year. Please fill out survey on blog if you might be interested in it in 2010.
By: Judith on January 31, 2009
at 2:30 pm
Love to hear from you when you are ready. Thanks. You do a wonderful job.
By: Judith on January 31, 2009
at 3:07 pm
Well, Judith, I am eternally grateful to SLAV for setting me on the path to blogging at the conference last year! This year I am going to have a go at incorporating blogging into my library lessons, getting the kids to write reviews of books they’ve read. I’d be happy to write something for you once that’s up and running.
By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2009
at 2:51 pm