Table of Contents | Reference Level
This document describes Cornell procedures for the record keeping associated with withdrawal, reinstatement, and transfer of library material. It is the product of discussions between and among technical services and circulation staff working out procedures applicable in the NOTIS environment. In addition to specifying record changes, it attempts to delineate the responsibility of circulation and technical services staff for various segments of the process. The intent was to describe processes in such a way as to make the document usable across the library system without reinterpretation, though widespread variation with regard to which operations are carried out within various libraries and units and which are handled by service units makes such description challenging.
Please note an important change embodied in this version of the document, made since an earlier draft: a period of two years is specified between discovery that material is missing and the final change of records to mark it as withdrawn. During the intervening period, the missing status is displayed in the public catalog (withdrawn records will not display in OPAC mode). A four year wait, and search period was specified in an earlier version of this procedure.
The procedures are meant to apply when records are in machine-readable form. Because all records will not be converted to machine-readable form for some time, procedures in place for the environment we are attempting to leave behind, manual circulation and paper records, will continue to be used in parallel with these procedures.
Withdrawals -- Single Piece or Multi-piece
Material is found to be Missing
When material is discovered to be not on shelf (NOS) and not charged out through the circulation system, missing items will be charged to pseudo-patron Missing which generates a Missing message in OPAC and initiates the automatic search sequence, with search reports (paper) generated at intervals governed by the circulation tables. Search reports will be used to search the stacks for missing material for a period of two years, during which time the missing message will display in OPAC. An action date of [day + 6 months] will be set manually in the item record to trigger notification to a selector for a replacement decision.
At the end of the tracking period, that is, after the last search of the stacks, the circulation unit will discharge each item from the pseudo-patron and, in order to avoid the appearance in OPAC that the title is on the shelf, add the withdrawal location code, "with," to the temporary location field in the item record; this will generate the message Being Withdrawn in OPAC in place of the location. The final search report will be sent to the appropriate catalog management section (for endowed non-Law units, Catalog Management Section, Catalog Department, Central Technical Services) so that withdrawal record changes can be done. Necessary card pulling will be done by the unit staff; card pulling from the union dictionary catalog and the shelf list in Olin room 110 will remain the responsibility of CTS.
When material charged out through the circulation system is not returned, the items will be charged to pseudo-patron Lost which will generate a Lost message in OPAC and initiate the automatic billing sequence. An action date of [day + 6 months] will be set manually in the item record to trigger notification to a selector for a replacement decision. When the billing sequence has been completed, any item not returned will be discharged from pseudo-patron Lost and recharged to pseudo-patron Missing for the duration of the two year period of searching the stacks described above.
At the end of the tracking period, that is, after the last search of the stacks, the circulation unit will discharge each item from the pseudo-patron and, in order to avoid the appearance in OPAC that the title is on the shelf, add the withdrawal location code, with, to the temporary location field in the item record; this will generate the message Being Withdrawn in OPAC in place of the location. The final search report will be sent to the appropriate catalog management section (for endowed non-Law units, Catalog Management Section, Catalog Department, Central Technical Services) so that withdrawal record changes can be done. Necessary card pulling will be done by the unit staff; card pulling from the union dictionary catalog and the shelf list in Olin room 110 will remain the responsibility of CTS.
When material in hand and not charged out through the circulation system is withdrawn from the collection because of condition or suitability, the piece itself will be sent to the appropriate catalog management section so that withdrawal record changes can be done (See Part 2 below). Similar procedures can be utilized when a user demonstrates that a loaned item has been destroyed or, in the absence of physical evidence, the user's report of an item being destroyed is accepted by circulation staff (that is, it is unlikely in the extreme that the item will "wander back" in the future). The Being Withdrawn location code (with) will be entered in the temporary location field.
Necessary card pulling will be done by the unit staff (in units supported by CTS which still maintain card catalogs); the shelflist card will be sent to the catalog management section with the item or a printout of the record when the item is not available.
Other processing centers will do their own card catalog maintenance, sending appropriate shelf list cards to CTS catalog maintenance for titles still represented in the union catalogs.
Card pulling from the union dictionary catalog and the shelf list in Olin room 110 will remain the responsibility of CTS.
Procedure In Catalog Management Section
Occasionally, items for which the withdrawal record changes have been done will subsequently reappear. When this is the case, the circulation unit will generate an item record and affix a barcode label, if necessary, or change the STATUS code in the already existing item record from W(withdrawn) to A (active). Either a printout of the record or the pieces themselves will be sent to the appropriate catalog management section, where all of the withdrawal procedures described above will be reversed and shelflist card(s) generated. A copy-level note: REINSTATED; [date] or v. [volume number] REINSTATED; [date] will be added. Copy statement date (|d) will be changed to [today]'s date.
Some deselected material will be reselected for another collection. When this happens, the existing copy statement will be reused, data already there will be written over to reflect the new location code. To complete the process:
Items ordered and/or received on NOTIS may have a two- or three-digit number in the NOTES field of the copy holdings record. This is the statistics code for CTS staff. Do not delete statistical codes from this area unless the date in the |d subfield is from a month previous to the current month.
Do not delete "gift", "exch", "reg", "dep", or similar information from the copy-level NOTES field of the copy holdings record.
Remove any indication of parts received in a multipart item when a MARC holdings record and/or item records are created. For example:
As of 9/25/95, CTS is no longer routinely adjusting call numbers for transfers. Instead, a w suffix will be added to the call number currently assigned to the item to ensure that there will be no duplication of call numbers in the receiving library.
Once a withdrawn item has been reselected for another location, the Acquisitions staff has the responsibility to change the existing NOTIS record or to create a NOTIS record to reflect the new status of the withdrawn item.
After properly searching NOTIS, apply one of the following four procedures, depending on the search results:
If the copy holdings record is online for the withdrawn item:
If you find a bibliographic record which matches the withdrawn item without a copy holdings statement for the withdrawn item, you will need to create a copy holdings statement for the new location:
If there is no record on NOTIS but there is either an RLIN id # on the yellow withdrawal flyer or you find a post 1988 Cornell record on RLIN, do not make a NOTIS record. Give the book to the searching supervisor.
If you do not find a NOTIS record which matches the book, and there is no RLIN id# on the yellow withdrawal flyer, you will need to create a bibliographic record and a copy holdings record:
Rev. 12/12/95 dih