Analyzing Bib and Holding Data for a List of Items by Barcode
Scope: This document explains how to review bib and holding data for items by starting with a list of barcodes. This process makes it easier to see how many items are on a holding record and how many holdings are on a bib record. This information is crucial for determining if/when holding and bib records should be suppressed and whether or not OCLC holdings should be deleted.
Contact: Heather Baker
Unit: Metadata & Discovery Strategy Department
Date last reviewed: 08/20/24
Date of next review: 08/20/24
When updating items to a temp location of Lost or Withdrawn, the holding and bib data must first be reviewed to determine whether or not the records should be suppressed from discovery.
• If it is a single copy, the item is suppressed at the bib and holding levels so it doesn’t display in the catalog; then the holdings are removed from OCLC.
• If there are multiple holdings associated with a single bib, instead, the holding record must be suppressed when there are no other items on it, and holdings are maintained in OCLC. This presumes that at least one of the other holdings has active items.
• If there are multiple holdings of a multi-part title, then depending on the status of other items of the holding, records are suppressed at the bib and/or holdings and holdings in OCLC may be deleted or maintained as appropriate.
Beginning with a list of barcodes, find the MMS IDs using this process:
Using Barcodes to find Data in Alma Analytics
Once you have the MMS IDs, run another Physical Items analysis with an output of MMS ID, Holding ID, and Barcode. Filter on MMS ID with the list of MMS ID numbers generated from the previous analysis.
Export the formatted data to Excel:
Paste the original list of barcodes at the bottom of the barcode column. Use conditional formatting to find duplicate values for barcodes. This will make it easy to see which bibs have multiple holdings, and which holdings have multiple items.
In the screenshot below, it shows the MMS ID (left column) with two Holdings IDs (middle column), and the barcodes associated with those holdings.
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