Re: Searching

From: Simpkins, Terry <tsimpkin_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 14:36:17 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Hi Brian,
FYI - The examples you cite are examples of superseded records.  Usually this happens when duplicate records are merged (by OCLC) onto 1 record.  As part of the merge process, the superseded OCLC numbers are shifted into an 019 field.

>>> I know of no way to do a reverse look-up of all numbers associated with one record
The MARC details apparently do not show in Worldcat or Worldcat.org.  However, they are visible when using a cataloging client like Connexion.  The MARC record viewed through Connexion shows 010 and 019 MARC fields.  The 010 is the master record number; the 019 contains the superseded numbers.  It's pretty easy to pull that data.

Hope this helps to explain what's going on here...
Terry

Terry Simpkins
Director of Collection Management
Music Library/CFA
72 Porter Field Rd.
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 443-5045 (o)
(802) 443-2332 (fax)



-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Brian Stamper
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 2:16 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Searching

Some anecdotal experience on OCLC numbers..

As a person who used to respond to ILL requests that were mostly based on  
OCLC#s, I can tell you that the percentage of them that are imperfect  
identifiers is significant. This may be skewed in the ILL situation, but I  
know I made a regular report of OCLC #s that did not match up between our  
catalog and WorldCat records. (I don't know how this happens, I'm not a  
cataloger.)

For example, search WorldCat for these OCLC#s (aka accession number in  
their search form, for those unaware,) and see that the (accession) number  
in the record doesn't match:
34356753
18870153
45748884

WorldCat is doing some kind of behind-the-scenes look-up, and those  
cross-references are not publicly available; I know of no way to do a  
reverse look-up of all numbers associated with one record. So, there may  
or may not be issues there, depending on how you obtain your numbers. Get  
them all consistently from WorldCat, fine, but mix in other sources, and  
you have a problem.

Brian Stamper
The Ohio State University Libraries
Scholarly Resources Integration
610 Ackerman Road Rm. 5833
Columbus, OH 43202-4500
(614) 247-8415
stamper.10_at_osu.edu






On Fri, 08 May 2009 13:13:53 -0400, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu>  
wrote:

> I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty damn confident that you do not need  
> OCLC's permission to use OCLC control numbers however you want. For  
> reasons I explain in that blog post.
>
> Certainly OCLC numbers are imperfect as manifestation identifiers. Any  
> service of bibliographic identifiers is going to be. Even ISBN is.  But  
> I doubt that any new system you try to come up with is going to be less  
> imperfect than WorldCat at avoiding duplication etc.   I'm curious what  
> the "allowable" duplicates are in WorldCat though? If there are _many_  
> of these, that might change my opinion about the suitability of OCLC  
> numbers for this task. But mistakes in WorldCat don't, mistakes will  
> happen in ANY system.
>
> We've already got OCLC numbers. It's an expensive thing to create. OCLC  
> is already doing it. You do NOT need to be an OCLC member or have OCLC's  
> permission to use OCLC numbers however you want (and this is in fact a  
> _seperate_ issue from the OCLC Record Use kerfuffle. Even if maybe you  
> DO need OCLC's permission to use the _records_, that still doesn't mean  
> you need their permission to simply use OCLC numbers. I am quite  
> confident you do not, although I am not a lawyer).
>
> Jonathan
Received on Fri May 08 2009 - 14:38:46 EDT