Beyond TAL: The Finest Union Catalogues the Internet has to Offer

Sorry it took me so long to post these. If anyone is interested here are the links from my training session about union catalogues.

• WorldCat (OCLC - 1.4 billion items)
  Advanced options/features: Keyword search, limit by format/publication date/audience/language; select only results in fiction/non-fiction/biography/thesis
  

• AMICUS (Library & Archives Canada - 30 million records from 1,300 Canadian libraries)
  Advanced options/features: Keyword search, subject browse, limit by date/format/language, specific target audience, specific publication type (including government publications!)
  

• LibraryThing (User-driven website - 38,549,578 books catalogued [4 million + titles])
  Advanced options/features: Search using tags (including combining or excluding tags!)—great for compiling book lists or doing readers’ advisory; includes reviews and recommended “readlikes”
  

• AlouetteCanada
  Search Canadian digital collections including records, diaries, photos, artefacts… from a large number of contributing institutions including libraries and archives
  
  
• The European Library
  Access the 48 national libraries of Europe from one portal. Includes books but also all kinds of other materials, including digital resources. 150 million records.
  

• Google Book Search
  7 million titles in full text (although not all books are browsable cover to cover), with advanced search functionality.
  

• OpenLibrary
  The goal: “One webpage for every book.” 20 million records with a wiki interface and philosophy. A project of the Internet Archive. Audience: public rather than libraries.
  

Bibliocommons at Oakville Public Library

Oakville Public Library has launched their new catalogue interface, which was built from scratch to integrate community and sharing functions. It's the first live installation of Bibliocommons. Check out how the catalogue integrates discovery aids and patron feedback. I really like how the site lets you register with a username if you're a library patron--similar to other sites like LibraryThing or All Consuming. People who use community websites a lot are used to setting up a username and having it appear next to their comments and book reviews.