Many MIT community members have WorldCat borrowing privileges. Outside users do not have privileges, but anyone may use the WorldCat interface to search. Please see below for more details:
Patron Type | Request Privileges |
MIT Faculty | Yes |
MIT Staff | Yes |
MIT Student: Undergraduate & Graduate | Yes |
MIT Spouse/Partner | No |
MIT Dependent | No |
MIT Other | No |
MIT Summer Program | No |
Draper Lab | No |
Lincoln Lab | No |
Whitehead Institute | No |
Retired Faculty & Staff | No |
Alumni Privilege Card | No |
Cross Registered Students | No |
Non-MIT Privilege Card | No |
Non-MIT Harvard Reciprocal Agreement* | No |
Non-MIT Wellesley * | No |
* Users from Borrow Direct Institutions and Wellesley should request material through their home library's request system.
To logout of a Touchstone session, close your browser. There is no "log out" button with Touchstone authentication. The "sign out" link, located at the top right of the WorldCat screen, will not log you out of your session.
Once you've located the item you want, simply click the request item button .
1. - items requested from the MIT Libraries can be tracked in Barton's Your Account.
2. - items requested from Borrow Direct can be tracked through the Borrow Direct request interface.
3. - items requested from "WorldCat - find it in libraries globally" can be tracked in ILLiad, the Interlibrary Borrowing (ILB) request system.
If you are uncertain about where your request is coming from or simply need help, Ask ILB.
Once you have checked out an item at an MIT Libraries' service desk, you can track the request through Your Account, regardless of how the item was obtained.
How do I import lists into WorldCat Discovery from my User Profile?
If you have a user profile in WorldCat already, either while at MIT or earlier, you can easily import your lists into WorldCat Discovery.
1. Log in to WorldCat.org and go to your profile:
2. Click on Lists, and the next screen will give you the option to download your list as a .csv (you'll need to create a separate .csv for each list you want to import):
3. Log in to WorldCat Discovery and either log in to your account or create a new one if you've never used this feature in Discovery before:
4. Once you are logged in, go to "Import My Lists"
5. Give your list a name and description, then select your .csv for import
6. Repeat as needed.
To recreate favorite Libraries or searches, just make note of what has been done in WorldCat.org and re-favorite or re-create these in Worldcat Discovery.