WorldCat

I began my search on WorldCat by looking for books with "beginner" and "genealogy" as search terms, and only books published in the years 2013-2015.

I retrieved 18 results, and the second and third were very good for a beginner genealogist, covering both online and print sources:

But there were only 18 results, and I knew I could do better.  So I went back to the search screen and modified my search terms slightly.

By changing that one term slightly, my recall jumped to 177.  The only problem is, the books that were found were not relevant to my search other than the first and fourth.  It was too broad.

This is why it is important to do multiple searches on a database.  If I'd done the second search first, I would have been satisfied with my incomplete results, not realizing that a better search was available with more relevant results.  I went back to the first search and chose title number 2.

It gives all the information that you need to find the book and to decide if the book contains the information that you need.

At the top it has a quick reference for some information about the book, and the very first link is a list of libraries that own the item, starting with those from your home state (or at least the home state of the organization that you are getting access through).

 Towards the bottom of the page there is a list of subjects that you can click on to search for more results using the terms you need.  Almost like a thesaurus, it you think about it.

I learned that there aren't very many books published in the last two years on beginning genealogy.  But the older books work fine, because many of the search strategies translate well through databases and in the physical world.  Since I looked for a thesaurus, I also realized that there is a button marked "Subjects" that will help you find subject keywords to search.

WorldCat is one of my favorite databases to search.  I can look for items that are common or rare, see what libraries have the resources that I need, and determine if it is likely that they send them through InterLibrary Loan.  I can determine if there is a resource on a subject for a patron, because if there is such a thing, it's likely that there is a record for it on WorldCat.  I use it almost every day in my job, and I'm always learning something new about it.