Project Team for Adding OCLC numbers to ACORN records
9/16/2008
Present: Zora Breeding (Chair), Nancy Boggess-Korekach, Bill Hook, Jared Ingersoll, Linda Tesar, Dale Poulter, Carlin Sappenfield. Regrets: Gypsy Moody.
AGENDA ITEMS
- What to send to OCLC
- Where to store the OCLC numbers returned from OCLC
Bill reported that he had confirmed with OCLC that they will indeed set holdings on Worldcat for records matched from our data upload. In discussion we realized that we need to confirm with OCLC that they can do this for each of the three OCLC symbols (TJC, TJM, TJL). OCLC will return a file with our local key and the OCLC # it matched against. What then to include in the data upload to OCLC, and what to leave out? From the email Zora sent with the agenda, these packages have been identified as ones we need to exclude, for licensing reasons: HeinOnline World Trials Collection Gale 18th Century Collection (Law) Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO) Evans Digital Collections. Early American Imprints Early English Books Online (EEBO)
What to do about Government Documents records? Linda reported that Law staff had discussed this and request that Law Gov. Docs be excluded, given substantial uncertainty about whether we actually hold titles for which records have been loaded. Larry Romans shares those concerns, but was willing to consider including Gov Docs in the match upload if it is limited to post-2000 publications. It was asked whether it is even possible to identify Government Document records as such, given that this category is not as clear-cut as it may have been in the past, regarding locations and call numbers. Many post-2000 records already have OCLC numbers, so the sub-set of Gov. Doc. Records after 2000, without OCLC numbers may be a small one. Dale and Nancy will run a test search to see if they can identify and extract the Gov Docs, to see how many records this might represent. What about uncataloged items? Should we exclude from the upload provisional cataloging records for items in the inventory? Many of these do have OCLC #’s in them. After some discussion it was decided we would exclude shadowed records (unless there remains an item on the record in the active collection), and uncataloged records, but we will include the inventory location provisional records. Where will we record the OCLC number that is returned by OCLC? It would be desirable to load it into a non-repeatable field, but no such field is available. The 035 field is frequently used, though it is a repeatable field, and can contain other information as well. The 001 field is often used for OCLC numbers, but is problematic as well. With much conversation about the limitations of doing so, the consensus emerged to put the information in the 035 field. Much of the debate revolved around the difficulty of knowing where to find the OCLC number in a record for future extracts, since there is no consistency as to the location. At the end of the meeting, Dale recommended that perhaps the simplest way to proceed would be to extract all records (subject to the exclusions already agreed upon) that do not have an OCLC # in the 035 field. This will result in a larger dataset that strictly necessary, but it would have the advantage of returning an OCLC # to be loaded in the 035 field. Some records would then have OCLC #s in more than one field, but we would generate a much larger set of records with the number in the same field, simplifying future extracts. The meeting adjourned at 2:00pm. Minutes submitted by Bill Hook
8/19/2008
Present: Zora Breeding (Chair), Nancy Boggess-Korekach, Bill Hook, Jared Ingersoll, Gypsy Moody, Dale Poulter, Carlin Sappenfield.
We met August 19th at 1:00 in the Goldberg room.
We discussed where to store the OCLC number in Acorn. We have used the 001 field in the past, but there is also other information in that field. We may be able to control the use of the OCLC number by its prefix. I don’t remember why, but this was not seen as desirable. We have also used the 035 field. This field is also used for other identifiers. Again there is a prefix for the different uses. A matching program would look for the first instance of one of these fields and that may not be the OCLC number. Did we explore why the prefix could not be the clue?
The OCLC number in each record and in the same stable field in each record is needed so that it can be a match point for future projects. The use of a stable matchpoint is needed for projects such as: The North American Storage Trust Worldcat Collection Analysis program Unicode overlay of fields on existing records Worldcat Local if we ever decide to go this route
The problem at hand and the one that directly caused this committee to be formed is that we will be sending OCLC a dump of our Acorn records so that they can return back to us a list of matching OCLC numbers. Some of our current Acorn records do not have matching OCLC numbers because we didn’t get them from OCLC or the number may have been inadvertently deleted for whatever reason. OCLC is offering to do a match against our records as part of our pilot participation in the North American Storage Trust project.
Nancy suggested that the unique cat key present in every Acorn record and generated by Sirsi could be used as a match point – if OCLC doesn’t remove it. Bill Hook volunteered to contact Doug Perkins at OCLC to find out whether this cat key can be redistributed by them with our list of OCLC numbers. He was also asked to find out if OCLC will return the full records or just the OCLC numbers.
Bill found out that OCLC can return the cat key back with the OCLC numbers. He also found out that only a list of OCLC numbers will be returned – not the full record which would have had any existing Unicode headings found in our records.
We also discussed at the meeting whether there were any restrictions on which records we could share with OCLC. Zora had heard mentioned at conferences that there were restrictions from some electronic resource vendors about sharing their records with OCLC. Nancy had prepared a list of the record loads for electronic resources. Zora volunteered to ask Roberta Winjum to review our license agreements for the material on the list.
Roberta has reviewed the license agreements and these are the vendors for which we are not allowed to share records: Gale 18th Century Collection (Law) Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO) Evans Digital Collections. Early American Imprints Roberta could not find information in our records on the following, but has attempted to contact them, answer pending: Early English Books Online (EEBO)