WorldCat Discovery release notes, June 2026
Release Date: 17 June 2026
Introduction
This release of WorldCat Discovery includes the following enhancement:
- Find precise results by searching with a full citation
Many of these enhancements are the direct result of your feedback.
New features and enhancements
Find precise results by searching with a full citation
WorldCat Discovery can now recognize citation-style searches and optimize them to improve search results. When users enter a citation, Discovery extracts key information such as the title, author, publication year, and DOI (when available) and uses it to search relevant indexes.
Previously, a citation entered into the search box was treated as a standard keyword search, which could return no results because the query did not align with how records are indexed. Citation detection helps reduce these no-results searches by using citation metadata to create a more targeted search.
Details
Citation detection only runs under specific conditions and does not affect normal keyword searching. It is triggered when one of the following conditions is met:
- A keyword search returns no results.
- A keyword search contains more than 40 terms.
It will not trigger if a search includes a specific index, such as title (ti:) or author (au:).
Note: DOI detection continues to take priority when a DOI is present in the query.
To be recognized as a citation, a keyword search must contain a title, author, and publication year. Discovery extracts this metadata and constructs a targeted search query against the most relevant indexes to improve the accuracy and relevance of search results.
When an optimized search returns results, Discovery displays an informational alert explaining that the search was modified. Users have the option to re-run their original search without optimization.
Matching terms are highlighted in search results to help users understand why a record was returned.
Note: When a query is optimized for a citation, only the first author's last name is included in the optimized query. If the citation contains multiple authors, only the first author's last name is used for matching and highlighting.
Citation optimization settings are preserved when users re-run searches from search history and saved searches. This helps ensure searches behave consistently when revisited later.
This feature is intended to reduce zero‑result searches. Previously, when a user searched a citation, there was often information included in the citation that WorldCat Discovery did not index (e.g. date accessed, website, and other information not directly associated with the bibliographic work). Now, WorldCat Discovery uses a machine-learning-based citation tool to parse and interpret citation data from the user's search query.
Since this feature depends on a pre-trained machine-learning algorithm, it may not consistently detect all citation formats or structures. Currently, citation recognition is limited to Latin‑script citations. Citations written in non‑Latin scripts, such as Chinese or Arabic, will not be improved at this time. Our recommendation is to always turn this feature on, as when a script is not identified or supported, the feature will elegantly fail and return results based on the user's original query, just as it does without this feature.
Configuration
Citation detection is enabled by default for all institutions and can be configured at the institution level:
Service Configuration > WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Local > Search Settings > Search query optimization
Important links
Product website
More product information can be found here.
Support websites
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.
