The Systems Office reports to BadCat a subset of duplicate barcodes (barcodes which appear in more than one Millennium item record) and duplicate OCLC numbers (OCLC numbers which appear in more than one Millennium bib record). These reports come 3-5 times a week and can have anywhere from 5-50 items on each report. Some number duplication is unavoidable (e.g., vendor record loads), but some of the cases that are most difficult to resolve can be avoided if catalogers follow these steps.
1. Prevention
Please do not create a new record when one already exists in Millennium. You may wish to overlay the existing record, but don’t create a new one.
- When you do your pre-cataloging search, be thorough, for example: search by title, series title, cover title, etc. before you conclude that a record does not exist.
- If your search retrieves several similar records, make sure you review all possibly relevant records before concluding that you have chosen the correct one.
- If you can’t find a record, and the volume you have is barcoded, please search by barcode
- if you find a brief record with the barcode, you should not create another bib and item record in the system – instead overlay the brief record that already exists in the system.
- Keep in mind: when you’re done cataloging, there must be only one item record and unique barcode for the physical item. If you still have two item records, one needs to be deleted.
- Generally, mono catalogers will not overlay bib records with CatDates. Staff performing bib-record maintenance will, of course, overlay bib records with CatDates.
- Please review the document Millennium Bibliographic Record Overlay
2. Resolution
- If necessary, negotiate with the other cataloging unit about which bib record will be retained
- Transfer attached records from the duplicate bib to the bib that will be retained
- Mark the duplicate bib for deletion. When marking a bib record for deletion, there should be no order records or item records attached. If there are, you’re not done. For information on marking bibliographic records for deletion please see Deletion: Bibliographic record
- If there are still two holdings records (each on a different bib), one of them is obviously not needed. The unneeded holdings record must be marked for deletion, please see Deletion: Holdings Record.
Legacy Data
Author: Matthew Prutsman
Approval Group: Cataloging and Metadata Council
Update Group: Cataloging & Metadata Council
Last updated date: 03/18/12
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