7 ways to clean up the catalog (7 minutes to talk about, more than 7 minutes to do the cleaning) Sarah Theimer, University of New Hampshire I did MARC and non-MARC record clean up at Syracuse as well and found the same issues so I know it is not just me. This list has been generated from a much much bigger list of quality lapses. These were selected for their seriousness and impact.
Dimensions of quality Definition: Quality metadata meets the needs of the user Some Dimensions: Accuracy: Information is correct Completeness: No missing mandatory fields or subfields Consistency: Same terms used Timely: Physical item needing cataloging should not live there. Cost: Thresholds are location specific, but a catalog record that takes weeks to create may not be considered high quality. Because the talk is aiming to be system agnostic I am avoiding exact details on how this is done. Will include list of helpful tools at the end.
When looking for problems you might want to exclude: Unless specifically looking for them: Suppressed records Order records Records for reserve material Locally created records for keys, laptops, rooms, etc. *Decide and articulate which records quality standards do and do not apply to
#1 Records with no 245 Impact: Bad public display, inhibits searching and identification Find Your local system may have a way MarcEdit Marc Report/MARC Analysis Correct Using call number, find the material Add title, Double check the record Ask why On the fly Bad overlay Bad old migration You might think this is impossible, but it is not.
#2 Electronic material with no 856 Impact: missing access, confused public Find Create list of records with an electronic location, but no 856 Correct Determine whether an 856 need to be added or the record needs to be suppressed/deleted. Ask Why Order records that were never replaced Placeholders from a migration
#3 No Holding/Item record Impact: Lack of call number and or location in catalog Find ILS report Correct If item doesn’t exist or exists on another record suppress or delete If record represents a real resource, complete the cataloging Check Holdings on OCLC Ask Why Withdrawal not completed Holdings was suppressed, not bib Cataloging was done on a different record We used to call these orphan bibs. Records out there by themselves.
#4. Physical item with no 300 Impact: incomplete public display Find ILS MARC Edit MARC Analysis Correct Add the 300 unless it is really an e-resource Ask Why Marcive records Old music sound and visual material Bad migration DVD or VHS, 5 pages or 500 pages. Field 300 was extended to music sound recordings and visual materials in 1980. Prior to that time, music sound recordings specifications used field 305 (Physical Description for Sound Recordings (Pre-AACR 2)) and visual materials specifications used field 301 (Physical Description for Films (Pre-AACR 2)).
#5 Old order records Impact: may need to reorder #5 Old order records Impact: may need to reorder. May be discouraging to the public. Find: (The definition of old can vary by institution and where we are trying to get the material from) ILS report of order records over a certain age Correct If we have given up on the order? Suppress or reorder Was it cataloged on another record? (If a received order) Ask Why Cataloging failure to overlay We received something different (Maps)
#6 Old On the fly records Find Correct Ask Why Sometimes have internal codes make it easy to find Sometimes location is circ desk Correct Check if it is already cataloged fully on a different record? Is it on the shelf – Did it ever come back? Ask Why Material gets put back on shelf after circulating
#7 Non fiction without subject headings Find: (This might also reveal bad coding of Fiction in the Fixed field) Marc Report ILS reporting might Correct: Reimport from OCLC Create a few SH Ask Why Record created with little time
Useful tools MarcEdit Marc Report/ MARC Analysis Open Refine http://marcedit.reeset.net/ Marc Report/ MARC Analysis http://www.marcofquality.com/soft/softindex.html Open Refine http://openrefine.org/