Appendix A: Bibliographic File Maintenance: Deletion of Records from the CONSER Database
Duplicate CONSER authenticated serial records are occasionally discovered. These may either be exact accidental duplicates, or multiple records that were created by GPO for what is now considered a minor title change, which may better serve the catalog and its users by being consolidated into one record. Normally, the cataloger would report the duplicate record to OCLC for deletion. However, OCLC cannot delete an authenticated CONSER record. Therefore, the cataloger must first delete the record from the CONSER database, then report this same record to OCLC for deletion. (CONSER Editing Guide C7.4, C7.4.2) To delete records from the CONSER database, catalogers should proceed as follows:
- Consult the CONSER Editing Guide (CEG): revised section C7: Duplicate Records as of March 2016, which should be updated in Cataloger’s Desktop in the May 2016 update). As needed, also consult the CEG: section C8: Record Consolidation/Separation. Specific procedures are found in C7.5, but catalogers should ensure that they have the necessary background found in all of C7, and, if needed, in C8.
- If the record to be deleted is an LC record, follow the procedure in the CEG section C7. Library of Congress records may be identified by: (a) containing a 050 field with second indicator “0” (zero), and (b) containing LC’s symbol, DLC, in the 040 field.
- If the record to be deleted is not a Library of Congress record, the cataloger may delete the record from the CONSER database following the procedure in CEG section C7.5. A record created by GPO may always be deleted. Records created by other institutions may also be deleted. Do not, however, delete another institution’s record if it was created first, and an accidental duplicate was created after it. Instead, retain the earlier record and delete the later one.