WorldCat may well be Hekman Library users' favorite research database. It can be used to locate unique and unusual books in thousands of libraries around the world. Recently, a visiting scholar at the library wanted to see a pamphlet that is unique to Juniata College, Pennsylvania. Our staff person used WorldCat to find the owning library and communicate with a staff person there who scanned the pamphlet and sent it to the librarian's Dropbox. 

WorldCat.org has a sitemap that points all search engines to more than 10.5 million records. However, search engines can also freely harvest from the entire database, especially those items on WorldCat.org that are linked to and referenced from other sites. 

The WorldCat database can be used to:

• locate rare periodicals, music scores, archival materials, maps - you name it!
• find reviews of current popular books
• initiate interlibrary loans
• search libraries anywhere on the mobile web