WorldCat Local and Prospector

Problem: Often books listed in WCL as being in Prospector libraries don't have Prospector holdings showing. You have to search directly in Prospector after all to find out for sure if they are really there.

Assigned to: gb, rb
Priority: high
Status: in progress, known issue

Troubleshooting notes:
9/28/9 - Work around: To find out for sure if a book is in Prospector, go to Prospector until we can make this seamless.
9/28/9 - Here’s how WCL works with Prospector.
1. When there is a search in WCL the results screen can detect if a library has claimed an item by placing it’s OCLC library identifier on it and the results screen will say held in a Prospector library and the item will be sorted in the list toward the top.
2. When you click on an item in the results list and get to the item’s screen WCL is searching for the item in Prospector by the OCLC number of the item and displaying the resulting information.
· If the item is found to be available in Prospector the holdings are displayed and the request from Prospector button shows if there are available items. If there are no available items only the ILL button shows.
· If the item is not found no holdings are displayed and only the ILL button shows.

9/28/9 - Here’s where the inconsistencies in Prospector as a consortial set of records starts making things difficult for everyone.

An item won’t be found in Prospector (so no holdings will display in the WCL screen and you should not see a ‘request from Prospector’ button) if:

• The record in Prospector does not have the OCLC number in the record.
  Notes: Prospector takes records from all 24 libraries and dumps them as is into the Prospector database. If more than one library owns the item then the record used in Prospector is taken from the library highest in the Prospector pecking order that has a record for that item. The libraries near the top of the list don't use the OCLC record very much.
• No Prospector library actually submits the record in Prospector
  Notes: Because they aren’t going to lend it on Prospector anyway. An example would be our videos or DVDs. We don’t even bother to put those records in Prospector because we aren’t going to lend them. If no one else does either then because a Prospector library may own them they will appear as such on the results list, but no Prospector holdings will show on the WCL item screen because no one is lending the item.