OCLC numbers in Symphony

OCLC numbers in 001, 035, 079 in Symphony records

Guidelines for staff who create and modify bibliographic records

Document created on: April 27, 2010

This document outlines what staff should and should not do with OCLC numbers in 001, 035, and 079 fields in Symphony records.

Update: April 8, 2016: As of December 31, 2015, OCLC discontinued batch loading of institution records. The Master and Institution record numbers mentioned below may remain in bibliographic records for LAW; any records created/processed in 2016 will only have the (OCoLC-M) numbers in 035.

What are these numbers and where do they come from?

OCLC number in 001:

Whenever a record is exported from OCLC WorldCat, its control number (i.e. the record’s id) is included in the 001 field of the exported record. These numbers have prefix “ocm”  if it is not longer than eight digits, for example:

001   ocm57660556

If it is shorter than eight digits, it is padded with leading zeroes, for example:

001   ocm00525556

If the number is nine-digit long, the prefix is “ocn”, for example:

001   ocn137908329

OCLC number in 035:

Beginning in November 2006, when records are exported from OCLC WorldCat, their control numbers are also included in the 035 field, with prefix “(OCoLC)”, for example:

035   (OCoLC)401166235

Unlike OCLC numbers in the 001, OCLC numbers in the 035 do not contain leading zeroes when the number is shorter than eight digits.

In addition to this type of 035, we also add OCLC “master record id” and “institution record id” to Symphony records locally, based on a report that we get from OCLC after a batch of our records is loaded into WorldCat. These 035 fields identify the OCLC “master record” to which our holding symbol is attached, and also the control number of Stanford’s own “institution records” in WorldCat. The master record number is preceded by the prefix “(OCoLC-M)”, and the institution record number is preceded by the prefix “(OCoLC-I)”, for example:

035   (OCoLC-M)54690115

035   (OCoLC-I)275888660

OCLC number in 079:

This field occurs only in OCLC “institution records”. It contains the control number of the OCLC master record to which the institution record is linked. It is formatted in the same way as OCLC numbers in the 001 field, as described above (i.e. it has an “ocm” or “ocn” prefix), for example:

079   ocn184741632

The 001 and 035 fields are “local fields” in Symphony, which means that they would be retained if the record is overlaid. The 079, on the other hand, is not a local field. It would be wiped out if the record is overlaid.

Guidelines on what to do with OCLC numbers in 001, 035, and 079

  1. If you are creating a new record in Symphony by smartporting a record from OCLC, either for acquisition purposes or cataloging purposes, keep the OCLC number in these fields.
  1. If you are doing copy cataloging for a new title (i.e. the record is an acquisition record, it’s “date cataloged” field is NEVER), and you consider that OCLC copy acceptable, then the OCLC numbers in the 001, 035, and 079 should remain “as is”.
  1. If you are doing copy cataloging for a new title, and find the OCLC copy used as the acquisition record to be not the correct record (e.g. it is for a different edition), and you are smartporting another OCLC copy to overlay the acquisition record, then you should delete the original 035 that contains the OCLC number in order to avoid having our holding symbol attached to the wrong OCLC record. You do not need to delete the 079, if there is one, because it will be automatically deleted by the overlay. You can also leave the original 001 in the record, as OCLC does not use the number in the 001 for matching, just the one in the 035.
  1. If you are doing “derived original” cataloging (i.e. you are turning the acquisition record into a record for a different edition), and the acquisition record was based on an OCLC copy, then you should delete the 001, 035, and 079 fields that contain OCLC number.
  1. If you are doing maintenance on a record that has already been exported to OCLC (i.e. the record has 035 fields that have the “(OCoLC-M)” and “(OCoLC-I)” prefixes, do not change or delete those 035 fields unless the purpose of your maintenance is to change the identity of the record (i.e. it was incorrectly cataloged and you are correcting that). In that case see #6 below.
  1. If a record that has already been exported to OCLC is linked to the wrong record, because a wrong cataloging copy was used originally, and you are correcting that by overlaying that record with another OCLC copy, you should delete the 035 field that has the “(OCoLC-M)” prefix, but not the one that has the “(OCoLC-I) prefix. You do not have to delete the 079 field, if there is one, as it will be wiped out by the overlay. You do not have to delete the 001 either as that field is not used by OCLC for matching. You can leave the prefix of the new 035 from the OCLC record that you download to make the correction as “(OCoLC)” (i.e. you do not have to change it to “(OCoLC-M)”).