[Eril-l] WorldCat FirstSearch problem and solution

[Leighton, H V]

Hi ERL Community,

  We noticed yesterday that many links to catalogs from WorldCat in FirstSearch were failing. If you search WorldCat in the FirstSearch interface, and you click on Libraries Worldwide, then if you click on the link to one of the libraries, the link often gives an error message that says, "System Failure Page: Unable to successfully complete transaction."

  Thanks to help from Carrie Currie at PALS and other people, I was able to fix the problem for our library. For those of you who have the problem, here is what I was able to do.


  *   I went into OCLC FirstSearch admin module. (http://firstsearch.oclc.org/admin<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffirstsearch.oclc.org%2Fadmin&data=05%7C01%7CVLeighton%40winona.edu%7C7b09eed50483477d56df08da7c817b4e%7C5011c7c60ab446ab9ef4fae74a921a7f%7C0%7C0%7C637959193277776533%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=i1IHOgdOUBO6BnKP91%2FkfcDoBjDAFR5MiMPeoVo0cGA%3D&reserved=0>)
  *   Under "Linking," I went to the screen for "Web Library Catalogs"
  *   Under "OCLC Number Search Results URL:" I added a URL.
  *   My own URL that worked (for Winona State) was: https://mnpals-wsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/openurl/discovery/01MNPALS_WSU/01MNPALS_WSU:NewView?rft.oclcnum=<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmnpals-wsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com%2Fopenurl%2Fdiscovery%2F01MNPALS_WSU%2F01MNPALS_WSU%3ANewView%3Frft.oclcnum%3D&data=05%7C01%7CVLeighton%40winona.edu%7C7b09eed50483477d56df08da7c817b4e%7C5011c7c60ab446ab9ef4fae74a921a7f%7C0%7C0%7C637959193277776533%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=haiNP9tXe97VujZqbai8XGryH8IVyrTAJunFCskhe4I%3D&reserved=0>

I have a suspicion that OCLC changed their access recently, perhaps switching from ISBN to OCLC Accession number. That is a good switch for ILL, but many libraries, such as Winona State, may have left that field blank. That would explain why so many libraries had their links break all at once.

Vernon
___________________
H. Vernon Leighton
Coordinator of Liaison Services
and Acquisitions and Collections Librarian
Winona State University Library
P.O. Box 5838
Winona, MN 55987-5838
(507) 457-5148
VLeighton at winona.edu<mailto:VLeighton at winona.edu>

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