WorldCat Discovery Known Items

Welcome to the tutorial for Known Item searching in WorldCat Discovery.

WorldCat Discovery functions both as a Library Catalogue and a Discovery Layer.  This means you can use it to find books, articles, videos, and audio recordings that Butler has as well as things that we don't have but could possibly get through ILL and PALShare.

To get started, we're going to look for a title that Butler does not currently have and we're going to use quotation marks around our title so that WorldCat searches for the whole thing as a phrase.

In the search box, please type:

"The War that Killed Achilles"

Then hit enter or click the magnifying glass icon

The first thing you should notice is that your initial results are mostly book reviews and that they all say "Held by: Butler University Libraries"

This is because the default sort is set to bring things that are owned by Butler to the top of the list, followed by things owned in PALNI, and then worldwide.

Above the results list on the right, you should see a "Sorted by:" box with "Library" listed.

Please change the "Sorted By" option from "Library" to "Best Match"

Now you should see that the first result is a book result.  By changing the sort, we made Discovery no longer take into account whether Butler Libraries holds the items when it displays the results.

Click on the book result

We are now on the item detail screen.  From here, you could place a PALShare or ILL request.

We can also find other editions and formats from this page.  Often when WorldCat Discovery displays results, it will hide editions and formats under an entry that has the most holdings worldwide.  So if you are looking for a newer edition, you may find it by expanding "Editions & Formats"

Expand "Editions & Formats"

Now you should see a list of results for the same items, with different formats, publishers, publication dates, and languages.

Using the Editions & Formats feature will help you find the newest version of your known item.  It will also help you learn if it is available as an eBook.

Please contact your liaison librarian if you have any questions.

Thank you!

Please enter your name and email address to retrieve a copy of your completed quiz.

You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. If you are doing this for a class, you may need to enter your instructor's email address also.

What did you think of this tutorial?