WorldCat issues – October 2022

WorldCat.org has recently updated both their interface and system functionality which has resulted in some issues for users attempting to connect from off-campus.

The vendor is working on fixing this problem. In the meantime, if you want to access WorldCat.org from off-campus, use one of these two suggested work-arounds:

A) You can sign up for an account and pick “UW-Madison Libraries” as your favorite location.

NOTE that if you have concerns about privacy, the next option should be your preferred course of action. The Libraries provide anonymous group-based access to our licensed resources as long as you access those resources via the links from our sites and specific IP address ranges (campus addresses and certain VPN addresses that we communicate to the database vendors). Accessing a vendor’s site via a personal account may not afford you these privacy benefits, depending on the practices and policies of the vendor.

or

B) You can log in to the campus VPN service prior to going to WorldCat.org. This will allow WorldCat to properly auto-identify your computer as being affiliated with UW-Madison. Instructions for installing and running VPN on your device are located on the DoIT site.

NOTE that this VPN solution is temporary and just for WorldCat.org while they are fixing this. VPN on its own does not typically authorize you to use our databases. Using links from within our website is the proper way to gain access to our licensed database resources.

Please contact us through Ask a Librarian if you have questions about this. We will update this page with more information from the vendor when that becomes available.