Obtaining research and other library materials has become much easier, thanks to an online search service available through the WSU Libraries.
The libraries also recently eliminated interlibrary loan fees for WSU faculty, staff and students.
Books, media, journal articles and other items can be found via WSU WorldCat. Search from the WSU Libraries home page, www.wsulibs.wsu.edu, or from https://washingtonstate.worldcat.org.
For the first time, library patrons can access items from a single search system. WorldCat lets users search items held by any WSU library, those in 35 other institutions in the regional Summit alliance, and materials held in WorldCat libraries worldwide.
The WSU and regional holdings alone total 9.2 million unique titles and 28.7 million items.
While the site is customized for use at the Pullman campus, new sites in the coming months will be built for the regional campuses in Spokane, the Tri-Cities and Vancouver.
WorldCat indexes more than 66 million journal articles from sources like ArticleFirst and British Library Serials (which have interdisciplinary coverage), PubMed (with health science coverage), and other indexes.
Article coverage is expected to increase dramatically in October, when content available through the EBSCOhost system (currently available to WSU users from the Articles and Indexes page, www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/griffin/indexes.htm) is integrated into the WorldCat service.
From article records, patrons can use the Find it! button to access, in many cases, full-text articles in electronic format. For items not owned by WSU, users can place requests for electronic article delivery using the ArticleReach service.
The article records in the WSU WorldCat system do not represent all of the online journal content that the WSU Libraries makes available. But it is a place to start.
When possible, WorldCat links to full-text electronic content for books through services such as Google Books and Dial-a-Book. It also integrates review content from services such as Amazon and weRead.com.
Finally, WSU WorldCat has some strong social networking features built in that will enable users to personalize their research experience. Information can be transferred seamlessly to services such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
By creating an account, patrons also can write and post reviews to WSU WorldCat, tag records and build lists of resources that are usable by other researchers.
To try WSU WorldCat, submit a search in the box in the upper left corner of the WSU Libraries home page at www.wsulibs.wsu.edu.
