Re: OCLC (World Cat)

[Jim Hinck <books@GARDENHISTORY.COM>]

I frequently encounter OCLC records without holdings. In several
cases I have tracked them down to libraries that used to report
through RLIN and I have just assumed that the holding information
would eventually appear when the RLIN migration was
complete.  Perhaps I was naive.

But what really puzzles me is the situation revealed by C. J.
Scheiner's recent query regarding copies of Cavallucci's LEXICON
VOCUM.  This comes up as another unlocated listing in FirstSearch and
WorldCat even though the book being described is at Harvard
(Houghton) and easily found in Hollis.  Is this a fluke, or are there
many other records from Harvard (or other long-standing OCLC
libraries) which appear in their own online catalogues but are absent
from (or unlocated in) FirstSearch?


Jim Hinck
www.vialibri.net


At 11:29 PM 11/20/2007, you wrote:
> Hello Will:
>
> > There are no holdings attached to that record in OCLC. Therefore, WorldCat
> > would not list a copy. It looks like Swarthmore entered the record, but they
> > deleted their holdings for some reason. I believe it's OCLC's policy not to
> > delete records even if all the holdings have been removed.
> We here ran into the same situation.
> So to clarify matters I called OCLC support.
> They do not delete bib records even when there is no holding library.
> They hope that someone will come around at some point and add a
> holding eventually.
>
> So your assessment is completely on point.
>
> ~Allison Rich
>
> ********************************
> "Outside of a dog, a book is probably man's best friend,
> and inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx"
>
> Allison Rich
> Catalogue Librarian
> John Carter Brown Library
> Providence, Rhode Island
> Allison_Rich@brown.edu
>
> ********************************