Release Date: November 17, 2021
This release of WorldCat Discovery provides a number of new features and enhancements, including:
Many of these enhancements are the direct result of your feedback.
‘Resources’ menu label
This release includes the ability to customize the label of the ‘Resources’ menu that provides access to your custom library links from the WorldCat Discovery navigation bar and page footer
If you prefer to retain the default label ‘Resources’, no action is required.
For e-resources with a single link, users can now quickly access the report a broken link form or view notes/license terms from links displayed directly below the full text call to action button. This applies to search results (main results and local editions and formats section), the Access Options panel and shelf browse.
Search results tile
Access Options panel
You can now configure the label for the ‘Resources’ menu in the navigation bar and footer. This menu was labelled ‘Library Links’ prior to modernization of the WorldCat Discovery user interface. Now you may choose your own label.
Navigation bar
Footer
Configure this menu label via Service Configuration -> WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local -> Display Settings -> Resources Text. You may retain the default label ‘Resources’ or enter a custom label plus custom translations of that label in user interface languages appropriate for your community.
Please note: this configuration will be applied to the ‘Resources’ menu within My Account in December 2021, following a separate release for My Account.
Users who are signed in to WorldCat Discovery but do not perform any activity for 25 minutes now receive an alert that their session will time out. A Session Timeout box displays the message "Due to inactivity, you will be signed out in: 5:00".
Users may choose to:
The alert message will count down for 5 minutes. If the user does not perform any activity for 5 minutes, they are signed out and redirected to the landing page.
A user must therefore be inactive for a total of 30 minutes before they are automatically signed out: 25 minutes before the alert displays plus 5 minutes while it is displayed.
Users who are automatically signed out due to inactivity will need to sign in again if they start to use WorldCat Discovery and take an action that requires them to sign in, such as placing a hold or making an ILL request.
Session Timeout alert
If your library subscribes to WorldCat Discovery Premium (not WMS), you can now choose to turn off the display of item availability information from your OPAC in search results if this does not meet your needs. Instead, you may activate links from WorldCat Discovery to your OPAC interface, where users can view item location and availability information.
For WorldCat Discovery Premium subscribers, settings to ‘Display availability status’ or ‘Display local OPAC deep link’ are available within Service Configuration -> WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local -> Search Settings -> Search Results Settings.
When ‘Expand Search with Related Terms’ is applied to a search query, additional terms are now added from any authority source that your library has configured, regardless of the language determined for the authority source, the user interface or the user's query. Previously, searches were only expanded from authority sources whose language corresponded with that of the user interface or the user’s query.
If you have configured a custom notification message in the WorldCat Discovery header, the notification will now use default colors rather than your brand colors, to ensure sufficient contrast that supports accessibility.
When users share a record via email but do not enter a subject, WorldCat Discovery now enters the default subject line ‘Library records from [yourlibrary].on.worldcat.org’ so that the email looks complete. [yourlibrary] is your library’s WorldCat Discovery URL prefix. This restores functionality from the former WorldCat Discovery interface.
For libraries that either have availability turned OFF or have configured their WorldCat Discovery to display availability on demand, when a user scopes a search to a branch, the holding statement or availability-on-demand call to action on the search results will now display the name(s) of the selected branch(es). Previously, only the level 1 institution name was displayed for searches scoped to a branch at libraries with this configuration.
Before: branch filter is selected, ‘Check availability…’ displays level 1 institution name only
After: branch filter is selected, ‘Check availability…’ displays selected branch name
Users viewing the Traditional Chinese language interface will no longer see source code displayed on certain interface elements.
For WorldCat Discovery Premium libraries (not subscribing to WMS), WorldCat Discovery will now correctly display shelving locations within the availability table on the item details page. Previously, for some libraries WorldCat Discovery treated shelving locations as branches, displaying item information for each shelving location in a separate availability table.
When remote databases are included in search results and a user navigates to the next page, WorldCat Discovery now correctly positions them at the top of that page. Previously, the user was anchored at the bottom of the next page.
When users hover over, place their cursor in or enter text into text boxes, the outline of the box now remains visible for all libraries. The text box outline now uses your ‘Search and fulfillment buttons’ color from Service Configuration. Previously, the text box outline used the header and footer color. For libraries using a white or very pale header color, this meant that text box outlines became invisible or very faint. Text boxes are available on the following:
This is a list of new databases added to WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat.org since our last update.
You can enable these databases as search options in the Licensed Content and Databases module of the OCLC Service Configuration site. Please remember that your library must have a valid subscription to these databases in order to enable them.
Below is a list of new database names and providers for reference. The complete list of databases is available here.
From Accessible Archives, Inc.
IEEE Xplore Artech House eBooks - Technical books in all fields served by IEEE
IEEE Xplore Princeton University Press eBooks - Technical books in all fields served by IEEE
IEEE Xplore River House eBooks - Technical books in all fields served by IEEE
IEEE Xplore SAE eBooks - Technical books in all fields served by IEEE
National Theatre Collection, Volume 2 - Contains high definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies
The Docuseek2 Complete Collection: Third Edition – Canada - Contains issues-based documentaries from leading film producers and distributors.
The Docuseek2 Complete Collection: Third Edition – United States- Contains issues-based documentaries from leading film producers and distributors.
Children’s Literature and Culture - This digital resource showcases a broad range of richly illustrated primary source material which reveals the history and literature of childhood between the 1820s and 1920s. Rare books and unique works of art trace the development of children’s publishing from early mass-produced items through to the flourishing print culture that followed.
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings - Presenting content from across the globe, this diverse and comprehensive resource features thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study, including sites in West Africa, North America, South East Asia and more.
Support information for this product and related products can be found at:
When reporting an issue with WorldCat Discovery, it is extremely helpful to include the Request ID. The Request ID is found at the bottom of the screen on which the issue occurred. Including this information allows us to directly trace what happened on the request we are troubleshooting.