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OCLC Holdings Updates through Alma Publishing Profiles

OCLC Holdings Updates through Alma Publishing Profiles

Scope: This page explains the steps taken to update our holdings in OCLC by using Publishing Profiles in Alma, then explains the processes going on in the background enabling this workflow. It does not cover the steps taken to delete holdings from OCLC.
Contact: lib-mads-department-request@duke.edu
Unit: Metadata & Discovery Strategy Department
Date last reviewed:
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Section 1: Instructions for setting OCLC Holdings

Part 1: Setting Management Tags for new resources

Our first goal is to set the “Export to Worldcat” management tag to “Publish bib” for all of the items that have entered circulation in the last week. This step should be run prior to [SCHEDULED TIME] when the publishing profile is set to run.

  1. Run the Items leaving Smith Warehouse Work Order analytic and use the MMSID column to create a set in Alma.

  2. In Alma, run the Set Management Tags job. Select the set created in the previous step, then have the job set Synchronize to OCLC to Publish Bib.

Part 2: Send updates to OCLC

This job should be complete after [SCHEDULED TIME] when the publishing profile is set to run.

  1. Use an S/FTP program such as WinSCP to connect to the DUL S/FTP (contact MADS for instructions), and navigate to alma/production/mads/oclc, and download the newest file there.

  2. Change your S/FTP connection to DUL’s folder with OCLC (contact MADS for instruction) and upload the files there.

That’s it! OCLC will take care of the rest, processing the files and generating any necessary reports.

Next steps to improve the workflow

  1. Schedule the analytics to run automatically and send results to MADS email account. Eliminates most of Part 1: Step 1.

  2. Set up Publishing Profile to directly send to OCLC’s S/FTP. Eliminates all of Part 2.

Section 2: Background Documentation

The rest of this document contains information on how the processes involved function.

The OCLC publishing profile

The OCLC bib publishing job in Alma will process every record in Alma that has been updated since the last time the job was run. How it works:

  • It will only publish records with the ‘Export to WorldCAT’ management tag set to ‘Publish bib”.

    • Currently most if not all records come into Alma set to ‘Do not publish’.

    • There is a third setting, ‘Publish holdings only’, that only applies to the job to publish LHRs.

  • It will map the 852 $b & $c of each holding into a separate 964 in the bib (1 per holding), then use that data to add the correct OCLC Holding code to the 964 $a.

    • The field mappings are set in the ‘Map Holdings fields into Bib record’ table.

    • The OCLC codes are mapped according to the ‘Institution OCLC Symbol’ table.

      • Any location not covered in this table will get set as NDD.

      • Any location that should not have holdings set will need to get mapped to a non-valid code, which we have set to ZZZ, so it fails out of the process on OCLC’s end. Currently we only have this set up for the Withdrawn library.

  • It maps all holdings into the bib, regardless of if the bib or any holding is suppressed.

  • Community Zone records are not included in the job.

  • The publishing job runs weekly, and cannot be run manually except on development

  • The job puts the exported MARC files into an FTP location directly. Currently, this is set up to be Duke’s FTP, eventually this will be the OCLC FTP for auto processing.

  • Once OCLC gets the file, it uses the 964 to set holdings according to the 964 $a.

    • It matches only on exact OCN matches, using the 035 $a with a valid OCLC prefix.

Note: The only criteria for inclusion and mapping in the publishing jobs are the update date, the management tags, and the 852 $b & $c in the holdings. Any workflow for including/excluding records at different stages of the process must work around them, either by putting them in a library mapped to a non-valid code, or by having the ‘Export to OCLC’ management tag set to ‘Do no publish’

The Analytics piece

In order for a bib to get picked up by the job, it needs to have it’s management tag set properly, as described above. DUL CS is handling through the use of an analytic that reports on every item that left the CS Work Order in the past week.