OIAster records for multi-volume works seem to create a problem with in WorldCat, even when result sets are limited to Internet resources. For example, the Internet Archive volumes of the 21 volumes of the Statistical Account of Scotland, published between 1791 and 1799, are represented in WorldCat as multiple bibliographic records for the set as a whole; the user must click on "Find a copy online" links on the individual records to determine which volume in the Internet Archive lies behind the particular WorldCat/OIAster bibliographic record. This tends to unnecessarily clutter result sets with seemingly identical entries. The larger the multi-volume work, the bigger the problem, rapidly consuming the user's time and patience.
In contrast, the Google volumes of the Statistical Account are represented by a single record in WorldCat generated by the OCLC software, with explicit links to the individual volumes under "Find a copy online". The volumes aren't listed in any particular order, which is annoying (especially for larger sets), but at least the volumes are identified, saving the time of the user.
Ed Jones
National University (San Diego, Calif.)
Received on Tue Jul 13 2010 - 12:20:30 EDT