WISCAT Update

Welcome back for another school year! Just wanted to remind you that if you suspended your WISCAT requests over the summer they will automatically start when your end date is up, there is nothing you have to do.

While you were away WISCAT made some changes. You will notice that it became a more virtual catalog and when you do a search you will see more online catalogs like WVLS - V-Cat.The WISCAT union catalog is still available just reduced in size. The union catalog had the holdings from the online catalogs and those were removed to eliminate duplication and make the catalog more up to date.

I used to say when you request an item, find a record that has the most holdings for that item, so that you would have a better chance of getting the material,  that no longer applies with virtual catalogs.

When requesting material using the virtual catalogs, just select a record that has what your patron wants and make the request. WISCAT will search all the rest of the catalogs, both virtual and union for you behind the scenes, and add those lenders to your request.

Reference and Loan Library who is responsible for bringing and maintaining WISCAT, has changed their name to Resources for Libraries and Life Long Learning.  RL&LL for short. RL&LL got WISCAT software to talk to OCLC/WorldCat software and now requests are automatically going to those libraries that use OCLC/WorldCat. I am not making requests for you on OCLC/WorldCat.

I want to remind you that if you do not want a request to go outside of WI/Minitex type in OS:N or NO OUT OF STATE in the Borrower box on your requests, otherwise with the new technology, it is possible for a request to be sent to Kansas or elsewhere in the United States.

If you would like a WISCAT training session this Fall, let me know. David Sleasman the coordinator for WISCAT has volunteered to do a workshop in person or online.

Have a good year and if you have any questions call me at 715-261-7254 or send an email to: lyoung2@wvls.lib.wi.us

(Leora Young - WVLS Interloan Coordinator.)