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Record Merge Working Group charged tasks

Record Merge Working Group charged tasks

Areas that should be represented on the working group

  • Deep MARC expertise

  • Archives and Rare Books

  • Music (with Jane Beebe gone, do we have a music person? It’d be good to have someone who knows music records.)

  • Foreign language and records that have the original script along with a transliteration.

  • Serials

  • Boundwiths

 

Tasks

  • Determine if we’re working with a vendor (or maybe a consultant is a good idea -- a project manager to run just this part of the project?)

    • Identify vendor

    • References

    • Sample data

    • Financing

    • #allthatstuff

  • What do we do with suppressed bib records?

  • Determine (or in conjunction with a vendor) algorithms we are using for record clustering

    • Articulate the 5C risk tolerance for error

      • Some records that shouldn’t merge will. Some records that should merge won’t. That’s life.

      • What’s our risk tolerance?, where do we want to err? This is useful to say out loud so, at the end, when folks are frustrated in individual situations, we can remind them what we agreed to. (and so we can influence the algorithms appropriately.).

  • Decide if there should be a primary “winning” record or if we wish to merge record data together (beyond just local data).

    • If a “winning record”

      • What are the characteristics of “winning”?

        • The existence of particular MARC fields?

        • Is there one institution whose cataloging is so awesome, they should always win?

        • The highest OCLC number?

        • Does an EAST record win automatically?

    • If merging records together

      • In addition to all local data (59X, 99X, what else?) -- what other MARC fields would merge? E.g. Combine all the 6XXs from both records? 856s?

      • For local fields, do we merge or move data to more appropriate records? For instance, do we move 590s to holdings records?

      • Do we need to be cognisant about any fields that affect display in Discovery such as 655 \4?

  • Determine local fields to merge in (59X, 69X, 99X, what else?)

    • Are local fields prefaced so we’d know in a merged record which X9X note belongs to whom?

    • Have any of us put local data in fields other than X9X which would be problematic to lose? (e.g. donor names in 7XX’s)

  • Depository Collections

  • Determine record groups to be excluded:

    • Archives?

      • If yes, what do we do when one library has a record for the general stacks that another has in the archives? Not merge them either?

    • Records that have linked to or linked by (parent/child records)?

    • Equipment?

    • Vendor records that come and go

      • McNaughton

      • E-resource records (Kanopy, etc.)

      • PDA records

      • Brief/short records

  • Stuff will error out, that’s life

    • what kinds of reports do we need to do data clean-up after?

    • recommendations for manual cleanup, do we prioritize a project(s) or not? We could ignore the reports entirely and merge/unmerge records when we find them forever forward.

  • Develop a plan to deal with OCLC and EAST ramifications.

  • Do we keep the old data store somewhere in case we need to untangle something? Where?

  • Where does this all fit into the migration workflow?

    • Export data from ALEPH → dedup → put it back in ALEPH → migrate?

    • Export data from ALEPH → dedup → put it in FOLIO?

    • How does this decision impact downtime? Deduping will cause cataloging downtime in addition to migration in-between-system downtime.

    • Plan for a gap file? We send the full database on a particular date. Does new cataloging continue while the rest of the database is out? And then we send a gap file? Or does new cataloging cease while de-duping is underway?

    • And manual cleanup that we might want to prioritize?

  • Get sample data, review sample records and sample reports, ensure that we are comfortable before running the whole project (who signs off on that?)

  • Recommend ground rules/workflow logistics for moving forward consortial operations in the post-FOLIO merged record environment? Is it cool for anybody with cataloging/inventory authorization (as determined by their home institution) to make changes to any bib record?

    • Need a body that establishes metadata policies across the 5C (similar to established user and e-res groups that already meet)

    • Technical considerations that follow from policy decisions

  • We don't want people taking their frustration about merge mismatches (which are inevitable) out on FOLIO. How do we communicate around this? separate the issues?

    • List of recommendations should include us being explicit about what value we might be losing so that we can evaluate those decisions.

  • Consultation with relevant 5C committees/stakeholders

    • Archives & Special Collections

    • Cataloging staff at each of the institutions

    • FIT

    • Circulation and Discovery

Consolidated Charge

Part 1 - recommendation and vendor proposals

 

Timeline

  • Completed by May

Part 2 - select a vendor and work with them through AAG