Overlaying Pre-Cats

Bibliographic matching

When you are configuring and running the Load Bibliographic Records report, the most important settings are under Title Control Processing > Key Matching. Here are the settings we recommend:

Title control number matching rule

This tells Symphony how to process incoming records based on whether a matching record exists in the system already. The "b" refers to what Symphony calls "Rule 4", which states:

Incoming records will be compared with records already in the system.

Records that are new to the system will be created, and records that matching existing records will be updated according to other settings in this report.

This allows catalogers to overlay any record in the SWAN catalog. Sometimes you may wish to change this to "B", or "Rule 2", which is similar except that Rule 2 will not let the report overlay records with a Date Cataloged. Only records that have not been previously given full cataloging may be overlaid with Rule 2. You may consider this a safer option based on your needs, so choose accordingly. If you are using the report to bring in pre-cat or on-order records, Rule 2 is required.

Matching

SWAN has experimented with different matching practices over the years. We have determined that the option "Match on title control number" is the best option. This option requires you to include a field in the incoming record(s) that will show the system exactly which record to overlay. If you do not provide a Title Control Number or the Title Control Number you provide does not exist, the record will be created new.

Matching on indexed MARC tag allows the system to match on various fields such as ISBN, UPC, Publisher Number, etc. The SWAN catalog has too many instances of repeated standard numbers for this to be a consistently safe option. However, you may find it useful based on your situation. If you opt to match on indexed MARC tag, please limit your use to reports that do not overlay existing records (i.e. reports that only add new records or items.) For example, our Acquisitions reports that upload new bibliographic records and create on-order items do so based on indexed MARC tag matching. But these reports to not update existing bibliographic records in a significant way.

Performing Title Control Number matching

To match on title control number, the incoming bibliographic record must contain an 035 field formatted in the following way:

035 __ (Sirsi) a123456

We recommend always finding the record you wish to overlay in WorkFlows, copy/pasting the Title Control Number into your record editor (OCLC Connexion, MARCEdit, etc.), and double-checking it to ensure it is accurate. Any error can cause an incorrect overlay or duplicate record.

Symphony will match on the first 035 field it finds with the (Sirsi) indicator. If you are editing a record with existing 035 fields, either delete the existing ones or make sure the field you insert comes first.

Other load bibliographic records report settings

This is the report used to bring MARC files into the Symphony database. It has a number of options related to matching and overlaying records, item creation, and postload processing.

SWAN will create a report template for each user at our Cataloging Libraries using a standard setup. You are free to alter some of these settings, but others should remain unchanged.

Required settings

Please do not change the following settings in your bibload template.

General information

• All three of these settings should remain as they are.
• Whether bringing in new records, overlaying pre-cats, or updating previously-cataloged records, the Date Cataloged needs to be set to "Today."

Bibliographic record processing

• Update bibliographic records when updating records needs to remain checked or bibliographic overlays will fail.
  • It is possible to use the bibload report in conjunction with holdings statements to update call number and item information, and unchecking the box is necessary in these cases. 
  • It is generally preferable to achieve these changes manually or through batch edits.
• The junktag file is a list of MARC tags that are stripped during the load process if this option is selected.
  • Please leave this option active. SWAN's junktag file contains the following tags:

• Remove subject headings refers to the 6xx fields that should be stripped during the bibload process.
• The numbers here refer to their second indicator values.
• SWAN strips the following headings: