Why do ebooks we own only show as held At Other Libraries Worldwide?
Symptom
- We have selected ebooks in Central Index collections but they do not display as held in WorldCat Discovery.
- Ebooks display as At Other Libraries Worldwide
Applies to
- Collection Manager
- WorldCat Discovery
Answer
Titles in Collection Manager that are part of a Central Index collection can only set holdings on OCLC numbers and ISSNs. Since Central Index ebooks use unique identifiers and ISBNs for identification, holdings cannot be set on these titles.
This means that using the Collection Manager>Institution Settings>WorldCat Holdings setting will not set holdings, and holdings will not automatically be set in Record Manager since the ebook does not have an OCLC number.
Because of this, when searching in WorldCat Discovery these types of ebooks will not return as held when scoped to a local institution, they will only appear when scoped to Libraries Worldwide.
Please note that when selecting titles in Collection Manager, if the title has an OCLC number associated with it then the title will also be discoverable in the WorldCat or worldcat.org database and because it has an OCLC number, the record will show as held by your institution.
Additional information
Because of this, using some of the Database facets will not return the expected results when scoped to a local institution. An example of this would be if a library has selected an ebook in the Ebook Central Perpetual Titles collection (Proquest), does a generic search in WorldCat Discovery that would include the ebook that has been selected, and then uses the Database facet to select ProQuest Ebook Central. No results will be returned unless the Held By Library is switched to searching Libraries Worldwide.