Background

The River Campus Libraries, Sibley Music Library, and Miner Medical Libraries are all members of HathiTrust. Our membership and potential access to title depends on our reported physical holdings (all print single-part monographs, multi-part monographs, and serials). This includes items on our shelves, as well as items withdrawn from our collection because they were missing, lost, or damaged. Materials selected for deaccessioning are not included.

In December 2020, a revised snapshot of our monographic holdings was submitted to HathiTrust. We can update this snapshot on a regularly basis, ideally once or twice a year. 

Previous snapshots did not include missing, lost, or damaged items. Often these records were fully removed from Voyager and that information was lost. If records could not be deleted, often due to attached PO lines, the bibs would be noted and suppressed.

Unlike Voyager, in Alma all items that are “withdrawn” or removed from the active database can be discovered via Alma Analytics, coded “Lifecycle = Deleted”. This model allows us access to data in those records (items, holdings, or bibs), but does not clutter up the Alma database. After reviewing options in Alma and Alma Analytics, the Resource Management Functional Group and Alma Core team agreed to add a consistently formatted note [1]to the “Statistical Note 3” field in the item record for all items from locations

covered by our HathiTrust agreement. [1] This note will allow us to identify titles that we that we can continue to report to HathiTrust.

Process

*   Determine if an item is part of our HathiTrust agreement. This includes all print single-part monographs, multi-part monographs, and serials held by RCL, Sibley, and Miner. If not, you do not need to follow this process (i.e., withdrawing a DVD).

* Determine if an item is being withdrawn because it is damaged, lost, or missing. Do not use this process on items that have been selected for deaccessioning.

*   Before an item is withdrawn, call up the item record. Navigate to the “Notes” Tab.

*   Add to the “Statistical Note 3” field whichever of the following phrases is relevant to the item in hand. These are single phrases without spaces:

o   withdrawn/damaged

o   withdrawn/lost

o   withdrawn/missing

*   After adding the note and saving your change, withdraw the item as usual (along with any attached holdings or bib records as the situation warrants).

*   This note can be easily added on an item-by-item basis or added as part of the “Change Physical Item” job when doing batch deletions.

*   Once Analytics has refreshed (typically overnight), a simple report can be used to pull together any items with one of those notes, their MMS ID, and OCLC number. Ensure that the Lifecycle element equals “Deleted”.

-----------------------------------------------------------

[1] The original proposal sought to leverage the option in Alma to configure Statistical Notes so that their values are part of a dropdown. However, Alma

[2] The choice of field was informed by the fact that legacy fulfilment data from Voyager appears in “Internal Note 3” and Sibley is using “Statistical Note 2” to record embargo information on scanned scores.