Open WorldCat Deep Linking Functional for GPC and GUC

For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to suss out why some Georgia institution’s links in Open WorldCat search results went right to their catalog record for the title in question, but Georgia Perimeter College’s link just went to the main page of the OPAC and poor Gwinnett University Center had no link at all. Figuring out that the process is actually called “deep linking” was quite a break through. After that revelation and the discovery of a form on OCLC’s Web site that one has fill out to establish these deep links, I am proud to announce that we are up and running as of today! Click on the links below to see some examples of GPC and GUC deep linking in action.

find in a library:me talk pretty one day

find in a library:dorothy parker in her own words

find in a library:women filmmakers refocusing

I’ve tested all these searches in Google and the Open WorldCat record should be the first result or pretty near to it. (Remember, this program is active in other databases too. I’m just using Google as an example.) Just click on the search result, enter the zip code 30084 (which will bring up results for GPC and GUC) and click on our links to be taken directly to the corresponding catalog record. Pretty neat, huh? Unfortunately, Open WorldCat records don’t always make the first page of hits, sometimes even with pretty specific search strings. I’m guessing that this has something to do with the Google search algorithm; but further pondering will get me started on a discussion of the beauty of a catalog with a controlled vocabulary, and nobody wants that.

Needless to say, if we actually want to search our holdings or even holdings all over Georgia, our local catalogs and universal catalogs are more efficient tools than this. I see PR as being the biggest advantage to Open WorldCat. The more exposure libraries have in cyberspace, the better, and I’m very pleased with OCLC for starting this program. (I’m also very pleased with the service I received from OCLC while trying to establish these links. A big shout out to Joanna in Dublin, Ohio!)