5C Record Merge Updates

The 5C Record Merge working group is looking at the Backstage Library Works (BSLW) deduplication profile, and how we as a community treat MARC fields in our bibliographic records for the deduping process. Each member did some small tests, and now we are working as a group with one larger test file. These tests are to see how best to configure the BSLW dedup profile. If you’re interested, BSLW has information as to what is involved on their wiki on deduping.

At these initial stages, we will:

  • Retain MARC Field 583 (Information pertaining to EAST)
  • Set verification method in profile to “Within” for publication fields (goal is to ensure those publishers with articles or not get deduped)
  • 245 (title) remains with default setting (So far tests show this is fine. We need to address subfields n and p more closely)
  • Only OWN code will be retained of the 3 letter Aleph codes for the purposes of testing
  • We want to follow any recommendations from the migration team on particular fields such as the 3 letter Aleph tags or the bibliographic system number in the 001.

We will continue to produce a number of reports in particular that relate to potential clean up projects. We will do our best to ensure that links to these reports are shared via the Folio-Five Colleges Slack channel #alephcleanup.

Save the date for our next open house for the afternoon of March 13, 2020 at the Smith College Annex. Details will be shared closer to the date.

Best,

5C RMWG

Steve Bischof (UMass/5C), Sharon Domier (UMass), Laura Evans (Amherst), Jennifer Eustis (UMass), Rebecca Henning (Amherst), Colin Van Alstine (Smith)