[DCRM-L] Discontinuation of OCLC's institutional records program

[Noble, Richard]

In any such discussions one will need to be aware that the perspective of
the DCRM Community, so to call it (pretty accurately, I think), and that of
the purveyors of the WorldCat Discovery Service, are rather at variance--or
operate according to different geometries...

The purpose of WCDS is to replace "institution records" at the cloud level *and
at the institutional level*. An institutional "catalog" will be simply
those records that represent institutional holdings, which will be
presented in the local context by way of a filter. They provide for
item-level characteristics, not by having what are essentially (from their
point of view) duplicate records that incorporate that information, but by
including linked LBD that will display only to the institution's users.
It's simple enough--think of ESTC and the like, which make provision for
copy-level notes in the holdings, except that the LBD will not be available
except to the individual subscribers.

We all know, however, that the WorldCat is a messy database, rife with
duplication and confusion, partly as a result of the effort to incorporate
the entire World's records in all their variety. It has to be cleaned up
for the model to work. One good reference that I've run across for the
nature of the clean-up is the article "GLIMIR: manifestation and content
clustering within WorldCat", in *code{4}lib* 17 (2012-06-01)

http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/6812

The deliberate maintenance of whole individual institutional records is an
unrewarding distraction from this process. The best one might hope for (as
James Weinheimer has suggested, rather wishfully, on AUTOCAT) would be to
preserve the current IRs as they stand as a reference database, but that's
a pretty large act of charity.

Even when they were created, the IRs were, as expressed in "Cataloging: Use
bibliographic institution records"

http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/support/connexion/documentation/client/cataloging/IRrecords/institutionrecords.pdf

envisioned only as a means to preserve item-level information: "These
records contain additional cataloging data, such as local call numbers,
holdings locations within the institution, or local or copy-specific notes."

What we are left with is, we can only hope, the continuation of DCRM
records as equivalent to "parallel" records, as a way of maintaining any
semblance of such cataloging in a consolidated Cloud environment. If OCLC
is willing to continue regarding our records under that rubric, they will
want to limit multiple representations of the same entity to a single set
of master records created in different cataloging languages and under
different description conventions (in whatever combinations of those two
criteria). That leaves the institution with the option of attaching its
holdings to 040 $e dcrm(x) records, and us with a parallel universe within
which to contribute to and enhance each other's work (and for the good of
researchers, one might add). The other desideratum would be provision for
viewing all of the local bibliographic data associated with the
record--ideally to all users, if they could be talked into that.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>

On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Schneider, Nina <nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu
> wrote:

>  I’m happy to approach them, but will need to investigate who is
> convening these groups.
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> Nina
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> *From:* dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] *On
> Behalf Of *Deborah J. Leslie
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 25, 2015 10:14 AM
> *To:* DCRM Users' Group
> *Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] Discontinuation of OCLC's institutional records
> program
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> Maybe the new conveners of the TSDG can arrange a joint meeting with
> Curators and Conservators or Public Services and have Jackie talk; the loss
> of IR's concerns more than just catalogers.
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> Deborah J. Leslie | Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu |
> 202.675-0369 | 201 East Capitol St., SE, Washington, DC 20003 | www.
> folger.edu
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> *From:* dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
> <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Schneider, Nina
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 25 March 2015 12:35
> *To:* DCRM Users' Group
> *Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] Discontinuation of OCLC's institutional records
> program
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> I’ve been in touch with Jackie Dooley who has offered to have an OCLC rep
> be available to us during ALA Annual in June. I can schedule a period for
> discussion about this during the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee
> meeting, since I think the Technical Services Discussion Group is on hiatus
> this year.
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> For those of you who would like to know more, there is an FAQ page.
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> http://www.oclc.org/connexion/resources.en.html#questions
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> +---------------
>
> Nina M. Schneider
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> Chair, RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee
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> Rare Books Librarian
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> William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
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> 2520 Cimarron Street
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> Los Angeles, CA  90018
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> (323) 731-8529
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> nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu
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> http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/clarklib/
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