Thing number 12, Netlibrary and Worldcat

Hi, this exercise is for Netlibrary and Worldcat. (Rubs hands in excitement at Worldcat-I already have used that and love it.)

I signed up for a Netlibrary account. I already have an account with Amazon.com, which I do purchase from every once in awhile. That is an amazing site-they have pretty much any book or movie you can imagine in their records. But I did give Netlibrary a try, and it is cool. I tried a few titles which weren't in the system-no Field Guides to demons here-but once I got the hang of it I did a keyword search for writing and came up with 82 titles. What I didn't realize at first is that this is all ebooks-not every title the library possesses is in ebook form. That being said, I did find a book for the exercise.

"Writing for Quick Cash: Turn Your Way With Words Into Real Money by Oberlin, Loriann Hoff.
Publication: New York AMACOM Books, 2004."

I clicked on the book picture, and got the cover of the book with a sidebar of options. Apparently you can even print out these books if you wish, as well as save a copy to your computer or send a link to it in email. I clicked on annotated table of contents, and then clicked a little + (plus) sign above the image of the book to make it bigger. At first I had no idea how to advance to the next page. Then I notice the "Next" on the top right, went duh!, and clicked on it, and got the next page.

Heh, I even found the definition of an online term for the chapter-lurker. That's when you read something by an author and don't comment, in my fanfiction world. Their definition says it's someone who lurks without participating in a newsgroup. They think it's a good idea, as you can find out the proper netiquette prior to posting so you don't offend. Huh. I had to stop and take a break, and when I came back to Netlibrary it had gone back to the default page. Guess you can't leave it alone too long. Or maybe one of my coworkers had a look, lol.

Well, all in all, Netlibrary was pretty easy to use and I could probably show a customer how to use it. Mainly they would be accessing it at home I would think, but I guess some customers would benefit from being shown what to do first at the library so they have no problems when they are on their own. I still like Librarything better though. On the other hand, if I can't get my hands on a book and need it right away and it's online, this is definitely a valid alternative.

Worldcat...ah my pretty, who got me the book I wanted :) Before the Webthings Challenge, I learned about Worldcat and surfed around the site. It was how I found out about The "Supernatural" Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls by Alex Irvine. Being obsessed by all things Supernatural, I looked for books and DVD's on the show, curious as to what other libraries had. To my surprise, some had this book. Thinking what the heck, I put in an ILL request at the reference desk, also suggesting they buy it, expecting that they wouldn't. But aha, OCL did indeed buy some copies, and I got my greedy hands on one, that I've renewed a couple (cough) times. So I'm already enamored of Worldcat. It was also how I got the Field Guide to Demons-this time as an ILL.

Now to do new for this exercise: Search a recent book title. Let's see...Condo Owner's Answer Book. (It was the only nonfiction book on the New Book cart, lol.) The location box was already filled in-I guess it gets pre-filled if you're in the library-to 08721 Toms River. And surprise, the closest library that owns the book is Ocean County :)

Hmm, Details lists the Contents and description, Subjects came up with Condominiums -- United States. Apartment houses, Cooperative -- United States -- Management. Advanced search-oh lookee! You can search by keyword, title, author, subject (like, for instance, Supernatural), and ISBN or ISSN or OCLC Number. I did a search for Supernatural in the format of DVD video, and wala, got Supernatural the complete first season as the number one result. Clicking on it-yes, I do think WorldCat will help me and customers with the request form.

So that's another thing done, and I definitely see myself using Worldcat in the future, and possibly Netlibrary-that one will mainly depend on if it gets a title that I'd like. Hope you have a good day, and I'm gonna try and seriously catch up now, lol. Cya! Oh, and if you want to hop over to my writing blog, I posted a short fic on there, based on my favorite tv show. (Waves)