I search for books on WorldCat in preference to using my local library network web site because WorldCat has more books, so I have a greater chance of verifying that I have the search (e.g., author or title) correct and because I can get from WorldCat to my library network web site in one click with no retyping, but not vice versa. In effect, I’ve broken search into two parts: getting validated bibliographic data from WorldCat, and then clicking over to the library network to check availability and so on. By restricting searches, I’d lose the ability to distinguish between invalid searches (e.g., typos) and books the library network doesn’t have.

While sorting results by zip code is a little nutty, it’s not altogether useless. If my library network doesn’t have something but a geographically-close library does, I can get it via a third-level ILL, where I go to the library and fill out an actual paper form.

It’s true that I can’t get availability data from WorldCat — I need to go to the library network web site — but because it’s the web site for a network and not just the site for the local town library, the same problem is repeated one level down. I want to see both availability in my local branch and in the network as a whole (since I have one-click ILL for the network), but the network web site doesn’t let me specify my local library.

So … it would make things a little easier if WorldCat let me specify my library affiliation, since WorldCat could then display my local library network first. But because my affiliation is a network and not an individual library I’m still too many clicks away from the information I want. Similarly, I’m a patron and not a library, so I don’t have access to the WorldCat API, but even if I did it wouldn’t be much use without an API to the library network. Since that’s not going to happen, I’m hoping for a really nice screen scraper for Christmas.

When you search in the WorldCat web version, you can change location via zipcode easily enough, but that’s often too broad and doesn’t take into account library variations, agreed.

The mobile version presumes that you’re just interested in one library, when often the local search is unsatisfying and a search of preferred libraries would be more useful.

Google Scholar sets a cookie without requiring the login, which seems like a good method for implementation.

On a related note, it would be really useful if LibX could engineer a method for searching multiple libraries in its toolbar, too.

And to Jonathan, I think OCLC and the Cluetrain Manifesto should friend one another. Too much communication is locked up in authenticated mailing lists.

. Let’s be real most users want to see search results from libraries that they can actually get items from.

Ah, but wouldn’t this mean that ILS patron databases, which store access information, would have to be exposed to OCLC?

And have you looked at the OCLC iPhone app? It’s visible on this page when you’re using Mobile Safari.

As others have noted, the search relevance might need a tweak or two.