Online Kerflafel

How weird! I was teaching a class in the use of WorldCat, a database of the holdings of libraries from around the world. Pretty much if something ever existed in print, it will be in this database. There are 180 million records for your searching enjoyment. Nowhere close to the 30 billion pages on the web, but an overwhelming amount of material nonetheless.

Anyway, we were doing searches just to get a sense of what might be out there on topics of interest. Mostly to learn how to navigate and what the records look like and where to find the limits options, how to email, request through Interlibrary Loan, etc. One student raised her hand to tell me that when she clicked on the title of a book, it brought up a record for something totally unrelated.

I tried it out. I typed in cats, and found a record for Kitten's First Full Moon - a book we actually own here at Golisano Library (our holdings are part of the database). I clicked on the title, and got a record for Einstein's Universe - a book on astrophysics among other heady topics. Pretty far removed from a children's book on astrophysics!

Life is like that sometimes. You think you know what you are getting (or getting into) and it turns out to have nothing to do with your reality. I click on "quiet evening at home" and get a house full of guests of my children who are talking loudly and playing music on high E and being rowdy. I click on "pay off your car" and I end up with a thousand dollars worth of repair bills!

Of course, the potential for online damage from disjointed reality is far more serious than simple life complications. It is a bit scary to search for yourself on the web and discover hundreds of pages about yourself and your activities. I wonder what would happen if the same bug that was affecting WorldCat affected all online links? You could click on my name and end up with Lord only knows what kind of website.

Well, hopefully, WorldCat will get their issue fixed before the hour is up. The world is mixed up enough without any online kerflafel happening. Let's return to some sense of reality where books about cats end up being really books about cats.