Matching Bibliographic Records at the Central Site

February 15, 2002
updated September 2008

 

When a new bibliographic record is added to a local catalog, the record is also transmitted to the Central Catalog in real time (unless suppressed by Suppression Code). The system uses the following procedure to determine whether the incoming record matches an existing record.

Matching Algorithm

(1) The system compares the OCLC number (001) of the incoming record against existing OCLC numbers in the Central Catalog. If a match is found, the records are considered matched. See step 4 below.

(2) If no OCLC number match is found, the system compares the ISBN (020) of the incoming record against existing ISBN's in the Central Catalog. If a match is found, the following verifications take place:

The OCLC numbers are checked again.

For any match of records, the titles are then verified. If the first three significant words of the title match, the records are considered a match. The initial article of the title will be skipped in this verification (based on 245 field, second indicator).

 

Match / No Match

(3) If no match is found, the incoming record is added to the Central Catalog as a new bibliographic record, and the contributing library is noted as owner of the record.

(4) If a match is made, the system determines which record will serve as the master bibliographic record based on Encoding Level and Library Load Priority. See...

For Innovative documentation on this matching procedure, see page 103343 of the Innovative INN-Reach Manual.