WorldCat Discovery release notes, 8 January 2025

Expand search results to include newspaper articles

To improve the usability and precision of WorldCat Discovery search results for your users seeking original works and scholarly publications, news articles are now excluded from search results by default for all WorldCat Discovery libraries. You may configure display of a toggle for users to expand their search results to include news articles.  

Expand search results to include book reviews 

This release also includes a second feature to improve the usability and precision of WorldCat Discovery search results for your users seeking original works and scholarly publications. With this release, book reviews are excluded from search results by default for all WorldCat Discovery libraries. Also, by default, the Expand This Search With section of search results tools will now include a toggle for users to expand their search results to include book reviews.  

Through configuration, you may remove this toggle or configure it to be ON by default so that book reviews are included in searches unless a user chooses to remove them. 

What this means for your library 

You may: 

• Configure book reviews to be included in search results by default. 
  Within OCLC Service Configuration > WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Settings > Search expansion settings, activate the toggle to include book reviews in search results by default (not recommended).  

• Configure display of a search expansion toggle on search results for your users. 
  Within OCLC Service Configuration > WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Settings > Search expansion settings, activate the toggle to allow users to control whether book reviews appear in search results. 

Please see additional information in the OCLC Service Configuration guide: WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Settings > Search Expansion Settings > Book Reviews

• Configure your search box to include or exclude book reviews from searches. 
  If you leave your current search box(es) unchanged, searches entered from them will exclude book reviews by default. To replace or update your search box: 
  
  Search Box Generator: Within OCLC Service Configuration > WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Box Generator > Create Search Tabs, check the box for Book Reviews within the Expand Search section to include book reviews in searches from a given search box tab. 

Please see additional information in the OCLC Service Configuration guide: WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Box Generator > Create Search Tabs > Expand Search 

Custom search box: To have a particular search box or search box tab already embedded in your web pages include book reviews in searches by default, update the search box code so that it appends the parameter &bookReviews=on to the query string that it sends to WorldCat Discovery.  

Example: https://[yourlibrary].on.worldcat.org/external-search?queryString=milk&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false 

What this means for your users

The following table summarizes how your configuration choices affect your users’ experience.  

Please see additional information at WorldCat Discovery Help > Filter and refine search results > Expand This Search With > Expand search with book reviews 

Saved searches, search alerts and search history 

Please note: 

Saved searches: The original intent of previously saved searches will be preserved. For example: 

• Searches saved prior to this release with book reviews included by default will continue to include them.   

• New searches saved following this release will honor your library’s current configuration settings and your users’ choices regarding inclusion or exclusion of book reviews.  

Search alerts: For all alerts, either created prior to this release or following it, alert emails sent following this release will do so based on your library’s current configuration settings for inclusion or exclusion of book reviews.   

Search history: All searches rerun from Search History, whether created prior to or following this release will honor your library’s current configuration settings regarding inclusion or exclusion of book reviews. 

Product website

More product information can be found here.

Office hours

•    WorldCat Discovery Events - Community Center

Support website(s)

Support information for this product and related products can be found at:

• WorldCat Discovery support resources  
• WorldCat Discovery training
• Release notes 
• Contact OCLC Support
• OCLC Community Center
• Browser compatibility chart

Include Request ID with problem reports

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.