[Eril-l] Dummy Collection being recommended by OCLC support staff for mis-matched View Now links

[J Siemon]

 I’m concerned that OCLC support staff are recommending a solution which
only helps one library, and not all OCLC member libraries.

The issue is eBooks, in Discovery, mismatching MARC records with similar
titles, and showing erroneous "View Now" buttons.

The solution offered by support staff is: create a "dummy collection" in
WMS > Metadata > Collection Manager.  Place the OCLC numbers of the
mismatched MARC records into this dummy collection.  As a quick and dirty
fix, this process successfully removes the "View Now" buttons that were
erroneously showing on the other book (or DVD) records, but …

I see two significant problems to this ugly fix.

1) The fix only helps the one member library which noticed the issue.  The
hundreds other libraries which also have the issue would have to repeat the
same work.  This goes against a founding OCLC ethos of cooperation,
facilitating member cooperation to share and improve metadata for all
members.

2) The individual member library would need to add the OCN of each
mismatched record, often tens of records, to the dummy collection, and if
the member library added a new book which matches the similar title, that
one also would need to be added to the “dummy collection.”

I’ve heard from at least two libraries that OCLC support staff recently
recommended this Klugey (inelegant, clumsy, or patched together) solution.

The root of the mismatching is that a vendor supplied limited metadata to
the OCLC knowledge base (collection manager)  for the eBook.  The vendor
supplied metadata might lack subtitle, year, author, and/or publisher, and
therefore the link matches with books/DVDs with a similar title.

I’ve been told by OCLC KB team staff to use a different fix, one which gets
to the root of the problem and helps other member libraries.  The better
fix is: Add more metadata to the e-Resource in the Knowledge Base (KB).
Adding a subtitle or series to the title field is the most important piece
of metadata to add.

That is, using Collection Manager, find the one e-Resource KB record that
is lacking metadata.   Pull up the e-Resource (follow the link), and look
for a subtitle/series, year, author, and/or publisher.  Add that extra
metadata to the KB record, save it, and share your improved metadata with
the global cooperative.

For step by step instructions, see
https://www.slideshare.net/jsiemon/presentations “Cooperative methods to
improve the OCLC Knowledge Base,” slides 16-22.

I’m told by KB team staff that an attempt of a title only match will be
tried on titles of four words or more.

The method of adding a subtitle works 100% with collections that OCLC
members may edit, and the edits are retained.

I suspect the "dummy collection" method is being promoted by support staff,
because increasingly OCLC KB collections are being “maintained” by the
vendors themselves.  Unless the member correction to the metadata is sent
back to the vendor, the vendor will overlay the same poor metadata,
replacing the member improvement.

For more details about improvements being retained, see OCLC documentation:

Best practices for managing Grouped OCNs in knowledge base collections in
Collection Manager

https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/WorldShare_Collection_Manager/Choose_your_Collection_Manager_workflow/Knowledge_base_collections/Cooperative_management/Update_title_information_in_existing_collections/Grouped_OCNs_and_cooperative_management#Best_practices_for_cooperative_edits
and

List of collections for which cooperative changes are retained (Updated:
Monthly) (Excel file)

https://help.oclc.org/@api/deki/files/1907/kbCooperativeChangesRetained.xlsx?revision=10
<https://help.oclc.org/@api/deki/files/1907/kbCooperativeChangesRetained.xlsx?revision=10>

And there was a FAQ on OCLC
<https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6NaGRJB0HOIJ:https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/WorldShare_Collection_Manager/Troubleshooting/My_Print_record_has_a_wrong_Online_link_which_comes_from_WorldShare_Collection_Manager%253F_How_can_I_delete_it%253F+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>which
suggested this “dummy collection” method, but it seems to have been removed.

For an enhancement request about sending cooperative edits-improvements
made by member library back to vendors who provided the incorrect metadata
see:
https://www.oclc.org/community/enhancements/user_forms/send-to-the-vendor-which-provided-incorrectincomplete-metadata-knowledge-base-improvementscorrections-the-made-by-oclc-member-libraries.en.html
<https://www.oclc.org/community/enhancements/user_forms/send-to-the-vendor-which-provided-incorrectincomplete-metadata-knowledge-base-improvementscorrections-the-made-by-oclc-member-libraries.en.html>
Bottom line, I’m concerned that OCLC support staff are recommending a
solution which only helps one library, and not all OCLC member libraries.

All the best,
Jeff

Jeff Siemon, M.Div.,MLS  |  Assoc. Professor, Electronic Resources
Librarian  |  Nicholson Library
Anderson University  |  1100 E. Fifth St, Anderson, IN 46012
library.anderson.edu  |  www.linkedin.com/in/JeffSiemon
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