Missing Records Team Interim Report no. 1
May 25, 2007
Sara Shatford Layne (team leader, UCLA), Vicki Grahame (UCI),Lee Leighton (UCB), Lisa Spagnolo (UCD), Amy Weiss (UCSB), John Riemer (Implementation Team Liaison, UCLA). With assistance from Linda Barnhart and Karen Peters (UCSD)
This report lists the samples of missing records that have been created for OCLC to load into WorldCat. This report also describes the issues associated with each of the samples.
The Missing Records Team recommends that five categories of missing records be included in the pilot. Each category poses its own problems for loading into WorldCat. The preliminary report identified 17 categories of missing records. The team felt that it was not necessary to include samples from all these categories in the pilot as (1) it is not clear at this point if all of these missing categories should be loaded into WorldCat; and (2) several of the categories have similar problems (e.g., minimal data) that do not need to be tested with separate samples.
The Missing Records Team recommends against including samples of on-order or in-process records in the pilot for the following reasons: (1) some on-order and in-process records are already in WorldCat (at least one UC updates holdings in OCLC at the time an item is ordered); and (2) if we load records for materials that are, as of May 2007, on-order or in-process, it is unlikely (one hopes) that the majority of these materials will still be on-order or in-process on day one of the pilot.
A. SCP records for electronic serials (category VI in the preliminary report).
Sample: Available from SCP. We suggest loading the entire file of approximately 20,000 records.
These records almost always have an OCLC number in them, but the holdings symbols for each campus that has access to the serial are not necessarily associated with the record in WorldCat.
Issues associated with these records:
To be resolved before OCLC attempts to load the records:
- What holdings symbol(s) should be associated with these records? In order to perform a reclamation (or deletion) of these records once the pilot is completed, it may be desirable to create 10 new holdings symbols, one for each campus’ SCP records. [Note: OCLC says it is possible to back-out holdings from records to which holdings have been added using a batch process without affecting previously existing holdings information, so it may not be necessary to resolve this issue before the records are loaded.]
- What should be done with the 856 fields (local URLs) that are in these records?
To be resolved during the pilot:
- Do we want to take this opportunity to convert our single records to separate records?.
B. SCP records for monographs (category VII in the preliminary report).
Sample: A complete set of these records is available from SCP. Consider loading the complete set of approximately 160,000 records, if issues of ownership of the records can be resolved. See appendix A for a list of the files included in the set.
These records may have an OCLC number in them; they may have a “cloned” OCLC number in them (the OCLC number for the print followed by “eo”); they may have no OCLC number in them. OCLC will need to use matching algorithms other than OCLC number to match the “eo” records to possibly existing WorldCat records.
Issues associated with these records:
To be resolved before OCLC attempts to load the records:
- Some record sets were purchased from vendors other than OCLC, and negotiation will be needed in order to add them to WorldCat
- What holdings symbol(s) should be associated with these records? [Note: see comment on this issue in Section A above.]
- What should be done with the 856 fields (local URLs) that are in these records?
C. Brief (very brief) serial records consisting of a title and nothing else (category IX
in the preliminary report)
Sample: A sample of 5,000 records has been prepared by UCB, from an estimated 100,000 total from throughout the UC campuses.
Issues associated with these records:
Test to see how well OCLC’s matching algorithms will work with these records, and how many will need human review.
D. Manuscript records (expansion of category XI in the preliminary report)
Sample: A sample of 5,000 records has been prepared by UCB.
Issues associated with these records:
Since manuscripts are by definition unique, these records should not merge with any existing records in WorldCat. Test to see if any of the records do or would merge, and if so, what could be done to prevent this merging.
E. Records for rare books (category XII in the preliminary report)
Sample: A sample of 251 records has been prepared by UCLA. This may seem to be a small sample, but it consists almost entirely of records that were created locally because, while they did not meet OCLC’s criteria for creating a new record, a new record was deemed necessary for local needs.
Issues associated with these records:
OCLC’s criteria for when to create a new record are different from that of the rare book community, which has led to the creation of local records for variants that do not meet OCLC’s criteria, but that are significant to users of rare books. Explore with OCLC the possibility of using the Institutional record approach in order to preserve local records for these materials.
Appendix A. SCP Samples for Missing Records Team
| SCP Monographic Package | Records |
| CRC Press | 2,092 |
| Early American imprints. Series I online | 36,066 |
| Early English books online | 94,503 |
| EBSCO business source premier online monographs | 123 |
| eScholarship editions. University of California Press | 1,641 |
| IEEE Xplore online conference proceedings | 5,786 |
| IEEE Xplore online standards | 1,524 |
| JSTOR online monographs | 320 |
| Literature online – all subsets | 14,254 |
| Materials Research Society online monographs | 271 |
| MIT Press CogSci Collection | 390 |
| National Academies Press online monographs | 2,401 |
| Open access resource; selected by the UC Libraries. Making of America online monographs | 7,355 |
| Oxford reference online core | 108 |
| Oxford reference online premium | 152 |
| ScienceDirect online monographs | 25 |
| SourceOECD online monographs | 1,041 |
| SCP Serials | 19,099 |