Merging Bibliographic Records and Combining Inventory

Scope: Outlines steps for combining two bibliographic records and their associated inventory. Use this functionality when bibliographic records are duplicative and when all inventory from the merged record needs to be transferred to the record that is retained.

Unit: Resource Description

Contact: @Natalie Sommerville @Rich Murray

Date last review: Jul 9, 2025

Date next review: Jul 9, 2026

• Open the record you wish to “get rid of” in the Metadata Editor

• Click the Editor split mode icon (F6)

Open

• Open the record you wish to keep. The keeper record must appear on the right side of the split screen.

• Click on the keeper record so that it is the active record (the header will be blue rather than grey).

• Under the Record Actions menu, select Merge & Combine.

• Merge Routine should be OCLC Connexion Merge*.

• Use the preview function to verify you are seeing your keeper record, then click OK. If you are not seeing the keeper record in the preview, cancel the process and make sure your records are in the correct positions in the split screen.

• Choose whether Alma should keep or delete the merged record. NB: In almost all cases, the best option will be to delete the merged bibliographic record.

• Sometimes during a merge, Alma keeps the desired record, but inserts the OCLC record number of the “bad” record into the 035 of the keeper record. After you have done the merge, double check the 035 to make sure it is for the correct (“keeper”) record and not for the record you just tried to delete. If there has been an 035 mixup, fix it before you finish.

• It is likely you will now need to relink the item that was on the “bad” record to the correct Holdings record and then delete the empty Holdings record where that item used to live. For instructions on that process, see Relinking Items to Another Holding Record.