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Why do some article requests match onto an article while others match onto the journal the article is published in?

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Applies to
  • WorldShare ILL
  • Tipasa
Answer

OCLC's interlibrary loan systems primarily use the OCLC number of a record to match onto an item. Only items cataloged in WorldCat are assigned OCLC numbers.

Articles are not typically cataloged in WorldCat, but rather are pulled in from vendor databases, and thus are not given an OCLC number. This means interlibrary loan requests will be set on the journal that the article is published in, which is cataloged in WorldCat and has an OCLC number.

However, if an OCLC member library catalogs an article into WorldCat and assigns it an OCLC number, the request will be set on the article based on the information drawn from WorldCat.

Page ID
11722