Good morning, Crystal; and thanks for your reply.

First, I am of course talking about records in OUR catalog, not upgrades
made in the OCLC database (as we're not a CONSER library).

For years now we have had a policy of not using latest entry records for
currently received titles; and if records must be rechecked or revised
for any reason, the dead title records too have been changed to
successive entry -- much of this was done during retrocon, of course.
Like you, I too have used A2 if it cuts down on the number of successive
entry records.

> One important important point is that changing the Description to AACR2,
> means changing it completely to AACR2: basing description on earliest
> issue, following rules for choice of access points, etc.  It is
> unacceptable to supply ISBD punctuation on a preAACR record and declare
> it AACR2.

As we frequently have the beginning issues of older titles, re-checking
for the necessary information to change to AACR2 has been done as I
revised old records either in post-retrocon cleanup or when we (my
student assistants and I) did a massive re-check of all holdings when we
added our serials holdings to our PAC.   The problem I'm seeing here is
that the records which I re-checked and then upgraded (in our database)
to AACR2 are now being overlaid by old, frequently incorrect or
incomplete records. Somehow, when I've spent the time checking the data
from the issues where title changes (or cessations/mergers, etc.) occur
or going over to the storage library stacks and getting v.1, no.1 of a
title where the OCLC record description was based on a much later vol.,
I hate to see all of that work tossed out by untrained staff who assume
a library cannot make ANY change to a record they import for a PAC.

> We never reclassify just to match LC.  When staff is available (very
> rarely) we have done some projects to assign law numbers and other
> newly-defined schemes.  We'd like to do something with the revised J
> schedules although that's an expensive undertaking and is more likely for
> books than serials.

Many of our periodical catatoging dates back to pre-OCLC (of course!);
we used LC records (and LC call numbers) when we could locate them, but
when we could not or when records didn't include an LC call number, we
assigned our own, coming up with the numbers from the LC schedules.  Now
that records are FAR more easily found online and more of the early
titles have been assigned call numbers by DLC, the current cataloging
support staff is changing the call numbers from our in-house-devised
numbers to those in the 050 fields, and claiming that such deviant call
numbers are proof of "incorrect & inaccurate" cataloging -- even when
sometimes only the Cutter number differs!

But before I could counter their accusations, I needed to find out if
THEIR way of thinking was the prevaling one in the current library world
...

What changes the computers have made ... and not always for the better.

Kathleen

> > Kathleen Thorne
> > Serials Cataloger
> > San Jose State University
> > kathleen@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu
> Re: Upgrades to OCLC bibliographic records?                                  R