LINC Cataloging Policy - Proposed
OCLC Level 3 MARC Records Harvested from CONTENTdm

Background:

Lincoln Trail Libraries System is committed to facilitating discovery of and access to digitized materials. To this end, Lincoln Trail Libraries System and member libraries use CONTENTdm, OCLC's digital collection management software, to mount digitized materials on the Web and to describe them using the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set. To maximize discovery of and access to these materials, OCLC provides CONTENTdm users with MARC records for their digital collections, so that digitized items may also be represented in databases such as LINC that use the MARC format for encoding bibliographic data.

In the process of machine-"harvesting" MARC records from CONTENTdm, OCLC converts some Dublin Core elements into MARC fields that are not typically used in human-created MARC records. For example, personal and corporate name added entries appear in field 720--Uncontrolled Name rather than the 1xx and 7xx fields use for controlled names, and all subject headings appear in field 653 (Index Term-Uncontrolled), regardless of whether or not a controlled vocabulary was used in creation of the Dublin Core metadata.

For this reason, and because the records result from a particular, defined cataloging project, they are given the encoding Level 3, defined by OCLC as: "Abbreviated level. A brief record that does not meet Minimal-level cataloging specifications. Headings in the record may reflect established forms to the extent that such forms are available at the time the record was created." Level 3 records harvested from Dublin Core records are not abbreviated, but they are, as noted above, atypical.

Experimental use of software on the part of Lincoln Trail Libraries System cataloging center staff to convert these atypical fields into the MARC fields normally used in human-created MARC records has proved prohibitively time-consuming.

Policy Text:

In order to maximize discovery of and access to digitized materials, Lincoln Trail Libraries System cataloging centers may import into LINC Level 3 OCLC MARC records harvested from CONTENTdm-mounted digitized collections, accepting all fields as generated during the CONTENTdm-to-MARC conversion process. Lincoln Trail Libraries System will ensure that such fields are indexed and displayed to maximize use of bibliographic data by library staff and the public.

This policy applies only to Level 3 records created during a CONTENTdm-to-MARC conversion process. Other Level 3 OCLC records are typically extremely brief and substandard and must be upgraded by qualified cataloging staff before importation into LINC.