Alma Title Count Reduction Project: IZ Bib Records without Inventory

November 10, 2021

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Overview

Many I-Share Institution Zones (IZs) and the Network Zone (NZ) contain bibliographic records that have no inventory. Bib records without inventory that are not needed should be deleted from Alma in order to reduce our overall title count, and because when such bib records are unsuppressed from Discovery, the bib is returned in Primo VE search results of the IZ or NZ, respectively, which can frustrate users. 

Why are there bibliographic records without inventory?

There are several reasons why a bib may be present in Alma IZs without inventory.  We expect that a fair number of these records are artifacts from Voyager, but they may also be present from the migration to Alma or from incomplete cleanup of electronic resources in Alma.

• The bib record is part of a bound-with relationship that has migrated from Voyager.  These kinds of bib records without inventory should NOT be deleted or bibliographic data will be lost.  CARLI recommends that I-Share institutions review the CARLI best practices and options for bound-withs in Alma.
• We know there are many bibs used on purchase orders where the inventory has been moved or removed since the initial order.  In Voyager, you could not delete bib records that were associated with purchase orders, but in Alma, you can. Alma allows the deletion of bibliographic records that are associated with closed purchase order lines (POL). The POL will retain a copy of the basic bibliographic details, which preserves the ability to search Alma for these POLs.  Alma Analytics also retains data on bibliographic records that were deleted. 
  • If your institution has bib records that are on purchase orders that still have attached holdings/items in Alma that you no longer need or have withdrawn, those records should be deleted according to the Withdrawing Inventory and Deleting Records workflow.
• Another source of bib records without inventory are those that have not been fully cleaned up after the P2E process during the migration to Alma. For more information, see CARLI's Cleaning up P2E (Physical to Electronic) Records in Alma for I-Share Institutions.
• We have also found many bibs without inventory that are the result of portfolios that have been deactivated in Alma without removing the associated bibliographic records at the same time.

CARLI Reports of Bibs without Inventory in each IZ and How to Delete them

I-Share institutions may choose to delete these bibliographic records without inventory themselves using CARLI's posted instructions on how to create a Set from the reports provided and run the Delete Bibliographic Records job, or libraries may have CARLI delete the bib records without inventory on your behalf.

• CARLI has provided each I-Share institution with reports of bibliographic records that have no inventory in their IZ as of September 29, 2021.
• Bibliographic records that have no inventory and no active POL (that is, not closed or canceled) can be deleted from Alma via job or manually in the Metadata Editor (MDEditor).   
• The Delete Bibliographic records job will not delete a bib record if it is has an active associated POL 
• The job will not delete a record from the network that has inventory at another institution.
• The CARLI-provided report(s) of bib records with no inventory in each IZ have been created in files of up to 9,999 record MMS IDs per file. This is because the Delete Bibliographic Records job has a limit of 10,000 records at a time.
• The CARLI-provided report(s) have been created to EXCLUDE bib records in a bound-with relationship; but this is one benefit of using the job to delete these records, as it is strongly recommended that the first run of the delete job should be set to with "Do not delete if related to other records" checkbox option CHECKED ON.  This will ensure that no boundwiths or bib records in other related record relationships in Alma are deleted by the job.
  • After the delete job has been run, the records that were not deleted according ot the job reports should be reviewed to determine if there is a reason to keep them because of their related record relationship(s) in Alma. Please see CARLI's Part 3: Review the Delete Bibliographic records report for more information.
• Bib records without inventory can also be deleted via the MDEditor, but deleting from the MDEditor will not prevent the record from being deleted when there are related records.  You will receive a warning that related records exist but not which other records are related or what the specific relationship is.

CARLI staff will also be working on deleting bibliographic records from the NZ that have no inventory, which will help reduce the overall title count.

CARLI has contracted with the Illinois Heartland Library System’s Catalog Maintenance Center to engage a team of their professional catalogers to work on Alma record deduplication and cleanup under the supervision of CARLI Office staff.

Work Plan

Step 1: CARLI staff will write reports to find all bibliographic records in each IZ that have no inventory.

Step 2: CARLI will distribute reports for each institution in Box and notify I-Share Liaisons and Directors by email. On October 15, 2021, an email was sent to the I-Share Liaisons and Directors email lists with instructions on how to indicate an institution's choice to CARLI and instructions if the institution wants to delete the bibs without inventory themselves.  All I-Share institutions have bibs without inventory.

Step 3: I-Share institutions will indicate to CARLI by 5pm on Oct. 22, 2021 if they will remove these bib records without inventory from their IZs themselves or if CARLI will do this work on their behalf.

Step 4: I-Share institutions that elect to delete the bib records without inventory themselves must complete this work by November 24, 2021. 

Step 5: CARLI staff will delete the remaining bib record without inventory from IZs and notify each institution's I-Share Liaison when the work is completed in their IZ.

Current Status

Steps 4 and 5 are in progress concurrently.

As of November 10, 2021: 1,035,627 bibliographic records have been deleted from 89 I-Share IZs.

I-Share institutions that have Bibliographic Records without Inventory

88 of 89 I-Share institutions have bibliographic records without Inventory that need to be deleted.  (TRN does not at this time.)

Counts of Bibliographic Records with No Inventory as of October 12, 2021*

*Note: These counts are provided as information only. The total numbers of records in this list may differ from the number of records in the files provided to you in Box because those files were run on Sept. 29 and exclude any records that are known boundwiths.

Frequently Asked Questions

Could my institution suppress bibliographic records without inventory to reduce the title count?

No; all bibliographic records, whether suppressed from discovery or visible, are counted in Alma's title metrics.

What if I need to find information on a deleted bibliographic record in the future?

Alma Analytics retains details on each bibliographic record that has been deleted except for bibs that existed in your IZ for less than 24 hours. Additionally, Alma includes a "Deleted Repository" that may be consulted for deleted bib records, and if necessary, a record may be restored to the IZ within one year of deletion.

My report has bibliographic records on it that represent my Collections that I have created to showcase certain books in Primo VE. Will these be deleted as a result of this job?

CARLI staff have tested running a bib record that represents a Collection through the "Delete bibliographic records" job and it was not deleted. The job report stated the MMSID had inventory therefore could not be deleted. It seems that the related bibliographic records (those that are "in" the Collection) appear as inventory to the delete job.