Search WorldCat.org Using #Ask4Stuff on Twitter
If you're a Twitter user, take a moment to play with a new tool we've developed called Ask4Stuff. Our VP of Innovation, Mike Teets, blogged about this a few days ago. Mike describe this trial service as one of the experiments coming out of the OCLC Innovation Lab.
This trial service allows you to search WorldCat.org by sending a tweet. Just use the hashtag #ask4stuff followed by a few words as your search query and you will receive a tweet back with a PURL or a short URL to the results on WorldCat.org.
Here's an example tweet:
#Ask4Stuff lake erie shipwreck
And the reply:
@[username]We found something on lake erie shipwreck in #Ask4Stuff, get them at http://is.gd/daPWw
To tweet a search query, you just need to post a tweet using #ask4stuff followed by the words you would otherwise enter into the search box: #ask4stuff "search query".
You can limit your search to just titles if you use #ask4stuff ti:search query, such as:
#ask4stuff ti:where the wild things are
Or limit your search to just authors using #ask4stuff au:name query:
#ask4stuff au:daniel pink
For those readers who are patrons of a WorldCat Local library, you can search your local catalog using a hashtag and the URL prefix for your Local at WorldCat.org. For instance, the University of Washington's WorldCat Local URL is: http://uwashington.worldcat.org. To search their catalog, you would use the following tweet format:
#ask4stuff #uwashington [search query]
Your reply would include a short URL that would direct you to the results page at http://uwashington.worldcat.org.
Take a look at this experiment on Twitter and post any comments you have about this service. Even if you're not a Twitter user, you can view the tweets and replies by searching Twitter using the #ask4stuff hashtag.
Is this experiment useful? Practical? Fun? Let us know!
On July 27, 2010 at 11:47 AM Brian Vetruba said:
This is cool and works fairly well. But there are some problems. I did about a dozen sample searches. Searches with the qualifers were only bringing back results about 50% of the time. Most of these with results were major titles (e.g. romeo and juliet). Sometimes if you simply take out the qualifier, you can get results. For example, #Ask4Stuff ti:stones from the river brought back no results but #Ask4Stuff stones from the river did have results.
Another problem is with diacritics. #Ask4Stuff mädchen only brings back items w/o the diacritics (madchen).
Still, I'm going to promote this too. Hope this information is helpful!