WorldCat holdings audience levels

Overview

WorldCat holdings audience levels allow WorldShare Management Services (WMS) libraries to control who can see if they have specific titles or copies of an item in their collection. By assigning a specific level to a holding, you can suppress the holding from the general public.

You can specify at the title or copy level which of your holdings are displayed to:

Library staff
Library staff and library patrons
Everyone within a library's instance of WorldCat discovery
All WorldCat libraries

All WMS libraries are initially set up with WorldCat holdings audience levels enabled. If you would like the WorldCat holdings audience level asset removed so that you will not see audience level-related functionality in WMS, please contact OCLC Support.

Note: WorldCat.org will only display holdings set to the All Users audience level.

Audience levels are managed in WorldShare Record Manager or WorldShare Collection Manager.

Lenders in WorldShare ILL will only receive lending requests for their holdings at the All Users level. Other levels will not appear to borrowers in WorldCat.Lending libraries with private audience level holdings will not be included in a lender string and their private holdings will not display on the holdings screen.

If a lender has multiple copies of an item with different audience levels, only the holdings visible to All Users are requestable
Audience level scopes are not included in Discover Items.
The WSILL Admin and WSILL User roles can see all of their institution's holdings, regardless of audience level.

Audience levels

You can assign any of the following audience levels for the display of held titles (bib records) and copies (LHRs) in WorldCat.

Audience level	Description
My Library Staff	Display to library staff in the WorldShare user interface and when authenticated as staff in WorldCat Discovery Staff must be authenticated with a WorldCat Discovery Staff or WorldCat Discovery Admin role to view records in WorldCat Discovery.
My Authenticated Users	Display to library staff and users who have logged in with their WorldCat Discovery credentials or are recognized by IP address
My Library Users	Display to everyone within my instance of WorldCat Discovery
All Users	Display to everyone using WorldCat

Bibliographic and local holdings record level relationships

Because audience levels can be assigned on both the bibliographic record and the local holding record, it is important to consider the visibility relationships between the two.

Bibliographic holdings	Local holdings records
Always have an audience level By default, the audience level is All Users If the record does not contain LHRs, the default audience level can be reassigned If the record contains LHRs, the holding will reflect the most publicly visible LHR audience level If all LHRS are removed and the bibliographic holding is retained, the audience level will revert to All Users	Always have an audience level By default, the audience level is All Users

View audience level

WMS libraries are able to view the audience level of a bibliographic record or local holdings record in multiple locations in WorldShare Record Manager when they have enabled the relevant settings in Record Manager user preferences.

Record type	Location	View audience levels
Bibliographic records	Enhanced search results screen	In the WorldCat Holdings column of a search result
	Condensed search results screen	In the Holding Audience Level column of a search result
	MARC 21 editor	In the MARC 21 header
	Text View editor	In the Text View header
Local holdings records	LHR search results screen	In the LHR Audience Level column of a result
	MARC 21 editor	In the MARC 21 header
	Text View editor	In the Text View header
	LHR record work lists	In the LHR Audience Level column of a work list item
	Copies screen on a bibliographic record	In the Holding Audience Level column of a copy