Wednesday, September 12, 2007

WorldCat Ports

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this but I have been locked out of WorldCat on three separate occassions, receiving the error message "Ports Full: Your library's authorized maximum number of users are currently searching WorldCat. Please try again in a few minutes or try another database." I emailed our OCLC rep as it was my understanding we had unlimited search access through our SCELC subscription. Apparently SCELC has opted to go for the purchase of 50 ports to be shared by all SCELC subscribers so if fifty people from any one place are searching WorldCat at the same time, we will be locked out of the database. This, of course, could be allievated by SCELC subscribing to unlimited access at a 5-6% cost increase... At any rate, I anticipate this could be a problem during our instruction sessions. I will see if I can get WorldCat added to our training account for instructional purposes.

No comments: