OPAC DATABASE CREATION PROBLEMS

This article reports on a study to determine the nature and extent of the problems discovered when cataloging records for a consortium of five libraries were merged to create an online public access catalog (OPAC). Records in the host (University of Rhode Island) library's shelflist were compared to records in both the Online Catalog Library Center (OCLC) database and the OPAC. Problems were most acute in shared records, most commonly among those for reference materials and serials where host library holdings were often missing. Even for records present, call numbers were often missing, multi-volume records were often incomplete, and records for theses and dissertations were confusing and misleading. A dirty database requiring some clean-up of past cataloging sins had been expected. However, the magnitude of the problem and the apparent overlaying of first-loaded records by subsequently-loaded records was totally unexpected by cataloging staff, thereby calling into question the process by which the shared database was created.