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OCLC Update

By Rosario Garza

Access and Authorization Form Now Online
Great news. If you need to make a change to an existing OCLC authorization number, add a number for a new employee or delete an existing authorization number, you now can fill out the form on the Web. The URL for the new OCLC online form is www.oclc.org/app/sysacc/header.cgi. This same form can be used to change passwords for authorization numbers and to add or delete dial-access capability. If you have any questions about the form, just call Regan Harper, Bonnie Robinson, Ann Schwab or Mike Wright at BCR.

Union List Order Form Available Online
More great news! The Serials Union List Offline Products Order (SULOP) form is now available on the Web. Please go to www.oclc.org/app/sulop/ to place orders. You can also link to the form directly from BCR's Web site: www.bcr.org/~bss/oclcul.htm. After submitting a form, OCLC will contact BCR if a member needs to sign warranty pages. We hope this will make the SULOP order process faster and easier.

Updating URLs in Bibliographic Records
A recent quality-control enhancement now allows libraries to add and modify URLs in bibliographic records. Changes to records will be reflected in both WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, and CORC. The new feature, implemented June 25, was described in Technical Bulletin 239, Integration of the OCLC Cataloging Service and CORC. Cataloging users, who may have seen "CORC" and did not realize it applied to them, may want to take another look at the change.

The new capability was added in recognition of the difficulty to maintain URLs when they change. With it, cataloging users with full or higher authorization may:

Add a field 856 with a URL to any record that does not already contain field 856.
Modify field 856 in existing records to update the URL to a new one.

The only restriction is the inability to add a new field 856 to a record that already has one.

You can use the lock-and-replace commands to lock a record, add or modify field 856 and replace it. Libraries will receive a credit for replacing the record.

MARC Code List Additions
The Library of Congress has announced additions to the MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Descriptive Conventions and MARC Code List of Geographic Areas. The additional codes were available September 3 for OCLC members to use. For a complete list of the additions, go to www.oclc.org/oclc/bit/242/00aug.htm#additions.

Adding Maps and Visual Materials Formats
As part of the MARC Bibliographic Update, the fixed-field element FORM was added to Maps and Visual Materials formats in April. This allowed the coding of electronic items and other types of materials, such as microfilm and microfiche, that have always been coded in formats where FORM was already valid, i.e., Books, Serials, Scores and Mixed Materials.

When implemented in April, however, the Maps and Visual Materials formats were not added to the Microform Qualifier for numeric and derived search keys. Consequently, records for maps and visual materials that represented microform items were still excluded from the Microform Qualifier. OCLC installed a fix September 3, to include the two formats in the Microform Qualifier for numeric and derived search keys.

Records for microform items on the Maps and Visual Materials formats that still contain a "blank" value in FORM will not be searchable with this qualifier. However, OCLC plans to scan the records on the Maps and Visual Materials formats where FORM is "blank" and add a correct value if the records represent cataloging for microform items. OCLC staff has not yet determined the number of records, but expects to convert several thousand.

Examples of elements to be scanned to identify possible candidates for conversion are subfields $a and $e in field 533 and subfield $a in field 300. If these elements contain a specific material designation indicating the type of microform, a value will be placed in FORM if no value other than "blank" is present.

Because OCLC will be using a scan to pull the records and a macro to correct them, the corrections are expected to take several weeks. Users should search carefully before entering a new record. A duplicate record should not be input if the only difference is the lack of a value in FORM in the fixed field.

OCLC will update libraries on the progress of the scans. In addition, the manual, Searching for Bibliographic Records, will be updated.

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