WorldCat holdings audience levels

Learn how WMS libraries can view WorldCat holdings audience levels within WorldShare Interlibrary Loan.

Overview

WorldCat holdings audience levels allow WorldShare Management Services (WMS) libraries to control who can see if they have specific titles or copies of an item in their collection. By assigning a specific level to a holding, you can suppress the holding from the general public.

You can specify at the title or copy level which of your holdings are displayed to:

  • Library staff
  • Library staff and library patrons
  • Everyone within a library's instance of WorldCat discovery
  • All WorldCat libraries

All WMS libraries are initially set up with WorldCat holdings audience levels enabled. If you would like the WorldCat holdings audience level asset removed so that you will not see audience level-related functionality in WMS, please contact OCLC Support.

 Note: WorldCat.org will only display holdings set to the All Users audience level. 

Audience levels are managed in WorldShare Record Manager or WorldShare Collection Manager.

Lenders in Tipasa will only receive lending requests for their holdings at the All Users level. Other levels will not appear to borrowers in WorldCat.Lending libraries with private audience level holdings will not be included in a lender string and their private holdings will not display on the holdings screen.

Audience levels

You can assign any of the following audience levels for the display of held titles (bib records) and copies (LHRs) in WorldCat.

Audience level Description
My Library Staff

Display to library staff in the WorldShare user interface and when authenticated as staff in WorldCat Discovery.

 Note: Staff must be authenticated with a WorldCat Discovery Staff or WorldCat Discovery Admin role to view records in WorldCat Discovery.

My Authenticated Users Display to library staff and users who have logged in with their WorldCat Discovery credentials or are recognized by IP address
My Library Users Display to everyone within my instance of WorldCat Discovery
All Users Display to everyone using WorldCat

Bibliographic and local holdings record level relationships

Because audience levels can be assigned on both the bibliographic record and the local holding record, it is important to consider the visibility relationships between the two.

 Note: An audience level can only be changed for a bibliographic record if no LHRs are linked to that bibliographic record.

Bibliographic holdings Local holdings records
  • Always have an audience level
  • By default, the audience level is All Users
    • If the record does not contain LHRs, the default audience level can be reassigned
    • If the record contains LHRs, the holding will reflect the most publicly visible LHR audience level
    • If all LHRS are removed and the bibliographic holding is retained, the audience level will revert to All Users
  • Always have an audience level
  • By default, the audience level is All Users