Dear Angie,
Please, whenever you come across such an incorrect merge, report it directly to us as soon as possible. If it occurred recently enough, we can recover the merged
record and have a chance of learning from it how to prevent such incorrect merges in the future.
We do try to identify and parse dates and date-like data in 500 fields, but generally rely on their presence within a quoted note. It happens that the quoted
500 note containing the date in #701552600 is missing its opening quotation mark, and it’s possible that’s why we were unable to identify it. Or it might be that in the corresponding quoted note in #793401057, the date follows the map number. We can test
those theories.
If it is possible to include the date as part of the edition statement in field 250, that would be the best way to prevent an incorrect merge such as this.
Jay
|
--
|
|
Jay Weitz |
|
OCLC · Senior Consulting Database Specialist, Data Infrastructure and WorldCat
Quality Management |
|
6565 Kilgour Place, MC 139, Dublin, Ohio USA 43017-3395 |
|
T +1-614-764-6156
· T +1-800-848-5878, ext. 6156 · F +1-614-718-7195 |
|
|
From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Angela R Cope
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 4:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: OCLC incorrectly merging map records
I just discovered another record from my catalog that got incorrectly merged in OCLC. The map is an OSS map from 1943 with the same title as another map but each have different
dates (months indicated in a 500 note) and different map number identifiers (also indicated in a 500 note). See oclc number 793401057 that was merged (incorrectly) with 701552600. The title and date fields (008 and 260/264) match but the 500 notes described
what distinguished the two maps from one another. My library doesn't even hold the map that OCLC now says we hold.
Is there a committee from MAGIRT or WAML that is working with OCLC regarding this incorrect merging of catalog map records? Should we - map catalogers, special collections catalogers
- be keeping a record of these incorrect mergers as we discover them and then reporting them as a unified group? I'm sure for every one we discover, there are many others going undetected.
I've reported this error via OCLC's error reporting method. We need to express some concern about the frequency of this problem to OCLC. Why are we entering data into a shared catalog
if it's just getting deleted by their computers?
-Angie
Angie Cope
American Geographical Society Library
UW Milwaukee Libraries
2311 E. Hartford Avenue
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211
Hours: M-F 8:00am-4:30pm
(414)229-6282 / (800)558-8993 (US TOLL FREE) / (414)229-3624 (FAX)
43°03'8"N 87°57'21"W
Like us on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/agslibrary