CZ: Keep contributions from Community to bibliographic records, where possible
The Community Zone is open for contributions by editing bibliographic records in the Community. However, as soon as Ex Libris uploads the same bibliographic records again from the provider, the contributions by the community are overwritten, if the provider sends an identical field. In some cases this is OK (if the providers version is better) in others it is not (when the contributed field was more complete).
I propose therefore, that the rules for importing updated bibliographic records into the Community Zone by Ex Libris are changed in the following points:
• If not present, 040 field is added with IL-JeEL in $a. If present, IL-JeEL is added in $d. Alternatively the code of the publisher (according to MARC Code List for Organizations (https://www.loc.gov/marc/organizations/)) can be used.
• To the fields 1xx and 70x-75x, 20x-24x, 25x and 6xx the following rule applies: Fields are added, if no field with the same content in $a is present. If a field with the same content in $a is present, the field with more subfields is retained.
• 26x fields: Always the field with more subfields is retained.
• 4xx fields: Fields 400, 410, 411 are changed to 700, 710, 711 respectively (rule for fields 1xx etc. applies). Field 440 is changed to 490 (rule for fields 1xx etc. applies).
With those changes, we do not reach a perfect retainment of the Communities contributions, but major backsets are prevented.
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AdminTamar Ganor (Admin, Ex Libris) commented
Hello,
After internal discussions, as well as discussing with the CZ Management Group, Ex Libris will develop more flexible merge rules that will allow retention of customer contributed fields.
The development is scheduled towards the end of Q3 2025.
Kind regards,
Tamar -
Lars Iselid commented
I agree with the main purpose of this idea, but I have some objections. I don't agree with the statement that "...the field with more subfields is retained" always is a good solution. Just having more fields is not always a sign of more accurate metadata.
Also, I want to add that a provider update should not overwrite 6XX fields even when 6XX fields not exist in the provider data. We added a 650 with subfield 2 sao and it was overwritten by the vendor update, although no 650 existed in the provider data. -
Patricia Farnan commented
Added some votes!