[DCRM-L] OCLC proposal

[Ann W. Copeland]

Thanks for you suggestions. We are now working with the following draft:

*Request to OCLC to protect records coded 040 $e "bdrb" or "dcrb" or 
"dcrm-"* *from all machine mergers. *

The RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee officially requests that OCLC 
protect all items cataloged according to 040 $e "bdrb" or "dcrb" or 
"dcrm-" (ie., any $e code beginning with these letters) from all 
automated mergers. Because the DCRM suite of cataloging rules has been 
written to include materials from all periods, not just pre 1801 items, 
OCLC's current protection of pre-1801 records offers insufficient 
protection to the range of materials likely to be cataloged according to 
DCRM. **

Background information:

In Jan. 2010, OCLC began running duplicate detection software which 
allows for machine matches and mergers. OCLC's Cataloging Defensively 
Webinar, "When to Input a New Record in the Age of DDR," encouraged 
catalogers to supply edition statements in square brackets when there 
are true differences between bibliographic entities that would be 
matched and merged in the absence of the MARC 250.

DCRM(B) and DCRM(S) rules, however, do not allow catalogers to supply an 
edition statement. The area is a transcription area only. In addition, 
trying to devise an edition statement when one is not there is extremely 
problematic, especially in the case of concealed editions - closely 
similar editions printed from substantially different settings of type - 
which are not distinguished as such by the printer and/or publisher but 
require separate records.

In a message from Glenn Patton forwarded to the dcrm-l email list by 
Jackie Dooley on May 20, 2010, he assured us that :

"OCLC's Duplicate Detection and Resolution software (DDR) does not merge 
records if one of the imprint dates is pre-1800, nor would OCLC staff 
merge records in this situation unless it were absolutely clear that the 
records represented the same item (but we would be willing to work with 
someone who had gone through the effort of working out which were true 
duplicates and which weren't). While the matching software used to load 
records prepared in external systems into WorldCat is very similar to 
that used in DDR, it does not include the pre-1800 exclusion.  We could 
consider some more complex exclusions that would be based on the 040 $e 
coding (e.g., exclude all with a 'dcrb[x]' code and  its predecessor 
codes) if the rare book community felt this would be desirable...  It 
would be useful to carry forward this discussion with the rare book 
community.  Nobody wants to play "fast and loose" with record merging, 
but, on the other hand, I don't think people really want a situation 
where there's no attempt to match at all."

Discussion at the Bibliographic Standards Committee meeting in San Diego 
in January included accounts of catalogers reporting duplicate records 
for deletion. The rare book cataloging community will continue to report 
duplicates in this way.












On 2/7/2011 12:43 PM, Manon Theroux wrote:
> Here are my suggestions, Annie:
>
> -- make it clear in the Title that you're only talking about machine
> mergers (not "any and all mergers")
> -- make it clear what is meant by "dcrm-" (maybe by adding a
> parenthetical such as "i.e., any subfield $e code beginning with the
> letters dcrm"). Glenn probably knows what you mean but whoever he
> hands it off to (the programmers) might not
> -- put what the BSC is asking for in the *first* paragraph instead of
> the last one; use language that actually does the asking rather than
> saying the BSC "decided to ask"; label it as "Proposal" or
> "Recommendation" or "Request" or some such thing
> -- label the remaining paragraphs "Background Information" or something similar
>
> Thanks for doing this!
>
> Manon
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Ann W. Copeland<auc1 at psu.edu>  wrote:
>    
>> At the Bibliographic Standards Committee meeting in San Diego, I offered to
>> draft a proposal to OCLC to omit all dcrm, dcrb and bdrb records from
>> automatic deduping.  Here is a draft - please send comments. Thank you,
>> Annie
>>
>>
>> Request to OCLC to protect records coded 040 $e "bdrb" or "dcrb" or "dcrm-"
>> from any and all mergers.
>>
>> In Jan. 2010, OCLC began running duplicate detection software which allows
>> for machine matches and mergers. OCLC's Cataloging Defensively Webinar,
>> "When to Input a New Record in the Age of DDR," encouraged catalogers to
>> supply edition statements in square brackets when there are true differences
>> between bibliographic entities that would be matched and merged in the
>> absence of the MARC 250.
>>
>> DCRM(B) and DCRM(S) rules, however, do not allow catalogers to supply an
>> edition statement. The area is a transcription area only. In addition,
>> trying to devise an edition statement when one is not there is also
>> extremely problematic, especially in the case of concealed editions -
>> closely similar editions printed from substantially different settings of
>> type - which are not distinguished as such by the printer and/or publisher
>> but require separate records.
>>
>> In a message from Glenn Patton forwarded to the dcrm-l email list by Jackie
>> Dooley on May 20, 2010, he assured us that :
>>
>> "OCLC's Duplicate Detection and Resolution software (DDR) does not merge
>> records if one of the imprint dates is pre-1800, nor would OCLC staff merge
>> records in this situation unless it were absolutely clear that the records
>> represented the same item (but we would be willing to work with someone who
>> had gone through the effort of working out which were true duplicates and
>> which weren't). While the matching software used to load records prepared in
>> external systems into WorldCat is very similar to that used in DDR, it does
>> not include the pre-1800 exclusion.  We could consider some more complex
>> exclusions that would be based on the 040 $e coding (e.g., exclude all with
>> a 'dcrb[x]' code and  its predecessor codes) if the rare book community felt
>> this would be desirable...  It would be useful to carry forward this
>> discussion with the rare book community.  Nobody wants to play "fast and
>> loose" with record merging, but, on the other hand, I don't think people
>> really want a situation where there's no attempt to match at all."
>>
>> At ALA Midwinter 2011, the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee decided to
>> ask OCLC to protect all items cataloged according to 040 ++e "bdrb" or "dcrb"
>> or "dcrm-" from machine mergers. Because the DCRM suite of cataloging rules
>> has been written to include materials from all periods, not just pre 1801
>> items, OCLC's protection of pre-1801 records offers insufficient protection
>> to the range of materials likely to be cataloged according to DCRM.
>>
>>
>>
>>      
>
>    
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