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November 20, 2004

Yahoo-OCLC Toolbar

Not to worry, I'll get back to Internet Librarian again, but in the meantime the new Yahoo-OCLC Toolbar was announced, and I thought you should know.

Remember that OCLC has offered the complete Worldcat database to Google and Yahoo so that searchers can find books and the libraries that own them. All the information isn't there yet, there's only 2 million of the 57 million records available in the full WorldCat, but more is coming.

This new joint toolbar let's you search for a book by simply popping your search terms in the search box, and selecting "libraries" from the search drop-down:

yahoo2.gif

The toolbar also includes a "libraries" button (click on the OCLC logo) with the following options:

yahoo.gif

Okay, that's enough for me! My Google toolbar has been hidden from view, replaced with the new Yahoo-OCLC toolbar, which, by the way, includes some other interesting features such as a guard against spyware (I haven't read any reviews of this yet, so I'm not sure how effective it is), and, of course, the requisite pop-up blocker. But woa is me, it's doesn't work with Firefox.

By the way, if your library uses OCLC, and you don't want your holdings to appear in Google and/or Yahoo, and most private firms probably wouldn't, fill out the form on the OCLC Open Worldcat page. According to OCLC, "Only libraries with ownership information (holdings) in WorldCat will see their holdings displayed in the Open WorldCat interface. Libraries that have declined previously, or that decline via the update form, will not see their holdings displayed."

For more information, see the Infotoday Newsbreak by Barbara Quint, OCLC and Yahoo! Offer Joint Toolbar and the Web4Lib discussion on the topic.

Posted by Cindy L. Chick on November 20, 2004 10:21 AM

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