Report of the USMAI Serial Records Study Group

Pamela Bluh (ML, chair), Yalan Qi (ITD), Kat Ryner (SM), Joyce Tenney (BC), Marlene Vikor (CP)

February 1, 2008

Introduction

When catalogUSMAI was created in 2003, many serial titles were represented by multiple records. Investigations by the User Interface Task Group as well as ample anecdotal evidence from users over the years all indicate that a single record representation of serials regardless of format would be beneficial. In September 2006 the USMAI Cataloging Policy Committee (CPC) recommended a single-record approach for the cataloging of electronic journal titles that are also available in print or other formats, providing their contents are equivalent. This proposal received unanimous support from all respondents.

As a result of USMAI's decision, new serials are now cataloged on a single record, regardless of format. However, the issue of duplicate legacy serials records remains outstanding. In March 2007, the Acquisitions Serials Task Group recommended to the Council of Library Directors that the options for resolving duplicate legacy serials records be studied. The CLD charged the ASTG with forming a small study group to investigate and issue a report on the issues, offer possible solutions, and make recommendations based on what would be practical, cost-effective, and beneficial for USMAI users. Thus the Serials Records Study Group (SRSG) was appointed.

Issues

The SRSG obtained detailed information on the scope of the problem and identified 7,663 duplicate ISSNs involving 15,262 serial records. Of those, 1,764 ISSN clusters involved 3,499 records with URLs, indicating that at least one USMAI library had attached e-journal holdings. Concurrently with the SRSG's work, the Electronic Resources in the Catalog 2 (ERIC2) Task Group began to finalize bibliographic loader specifications to add records to the catalog for titles available via SFX. ERIC2 determined that ITD programming required for a smooth load of SFX titles into catalogUSMAI would be enhanced if duplicate legacy serials records with URLs were removed from the catalog.

In order to assess the work that would be required to merge holdings and de-duplicate legacy serials records, Marlene Vikor examined duplicate ISSNs with URLs. During a two month period, she reviewed over 2,000 records associated with duplicate ISSNs. She merged 542 duplicates, or 53% of the total reviewed. Related titles sharing an ISSN were inappropriate for merge (18%), and government document serials (25%) and knottier titles (4%) were skipped in the interest of time. There remain 747 ISSN clusters to be evaluated for merge from the original 1,764 duplicate clusters with URLs.

Possible Solutions

There is no automated way to handle the merging of these records. These kinds of merges must be done by experienced librarians who understand the complexity of the work. The options for dealing with duplicate legacy serials records range from doing nothing to beginning a complete clean-up. The options are:

1. Do nothing: Do not continue with the remaining records and leave the legacy duplicate serials records as they are. Duplicate serials records will continue to cause confusion for users, and programming the SFX loader will be problematic.
2. Merge some duplicates: Finish merging the duplicate records with URLs but do not attempt to merge any of the complex records with URLs or the duplicates without URLs. Duplicate serials records will continue to cause confusion for users.
3. Merge all duplicates: Finish Marlene's work merging the records with URLs and move on to merge all remaining duplicate legacy serials records.

For option b or c, there are several possibilities for completing the merge. Approaches include:

1. Encourage individual libraries to merge the records for which they have holdings. Each library may decide when and whether the work will be done. Some libraries may not have the staff or expertise to do the work, so the work will remain undone, creating confusion for users.
2. Charge the CPC with organizing the merging of duplicate records on behalf of USMAI. The work would be expertly handled in an organized manner, the user experience would improve, and the programming of the SFX loader would be simplified.
3. Outsource the merging of duplicate records on behalf of USMAI. This option would be the most expensive, and possibly the least effective, since an outside contractor would not have the experience or knowledge of USMAI's unique ADM structure.

Recommendations

The SRSG recommends that all duplicate legacy serials records, with and without URLS, be merged. We also recommend that the CLD charge the CPC with organizing such a project.

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