Skip to main content
more options
Library Technical Services > Procedures & Documentation > Database Maintenance > Deleting Records 

Deleting Records (Voyager)

 

Scope: This procedure contains instructions for deleting authority, bibliographic, holdings, and item records from Voyager, as well as for deleting Cornell holdings from OCLC WorldCat. Only staff with the appropriate authorizations will be able to delete records.

Contact: Ardeen White

Date created: 03/25/08

Authority Records

A. Local Authority Records:

1. Send requests to delete local authority records (which lack 010 fields and contain 040 $a NIC $c NIC) to the Authority Control Assistant in LTS Database Management Services (DMS).

2. Catalogers in Olin LTS may make printouts of their records, clearly annotate the worksheets, and place them in the “NACO Bin” in Room 107E Olin.

B. NACO Authority Records:

1. Send requests to delete authority records from the national file to the CUL NACO Coordinator.

2. Catalogers in Olin LTS may make printouts of their records, clearly annotate the worksheets, and place them in the “NACO Bin” in Room 107E Olin.

3. For more information, see the NACO Guidelines.    



Bibliographic Records

A. General Considerations

1. See the Withdrawals procedure for more information on deleting (and suppressing) BIB records in conjunction with the withdrawal process.

2. Purchase orders, holdings, and item records associated with the target BIB record must be deleted before the bibliographic records can be deleted from Voyager. If, for some reason, one or more of these associated records cannot be deleted, suppress tthe BIB record from the Voyager OPAC instead of deleting it. Approved purchase orders generally cannot be deleted, nor can item records with outstanding transactions.

3. If you are unable to delete records from Voyager or are reluctant to do so, send clearly annotated printouts to DMS or place them in the mail bin labeled “Voyager, RLIN [sic], and OCLC Deletes” in the west end of Room 110 Olin. DMS staff: if a BIB ID is not included in the request, return the printout to the person whose initials appear on it to verify that the BIB does need to be deleted.

B. To Delete a BIB Record

1. Delete Item and MFHD records associated with the BIB record. If you cannot delete the items and MFHDs, you will not be able to delete the BIB.

2. Uncataloged records:

       Display the BIB.

       Type [alt] r d to delete the record.

       Click on YES to confirm the deletion.

3. Cataloged records (except duplicates): 

       Display the BIB.

       Set Leader / Record Status to d.

       Type [alt] s p to suppress the record from OPAC display.

       Type [control] b to save the record to the database.

       An automated program will delete our holdings from OCLC overnight and remove the records from Voyager monthly.

4. Cataloged records (duplicates): 

      Display the BIB to be deleted.

      Add 995 $a NoExOCLC 

      Set Leader / Record Status to d.

      Type [alt] s p to suppress the record from OPAC display. 

      Type [control] b to save the record to the database.

      An automated program will remove these records from Voyager monthly.
  Holdings (MFHD) Records

1. Delete Item records associated with the MFHD record. If you cannot delete the items, you will not be able to delete the MFHD.

2. To delete a holdings record:

       Display the MFHD.
      
       Type [alt] r d to delete the record.

       Click on YES to confirm the deletion.

       If you get the message Unable to delete holdings record. PO must be deleted first, click on OK and alert Acquisitions.

Item Records

1. If you want to delete a bibliographic record from Voyager, you must delete its associated item record(s) first, then its MFHDs, then the BIB record. Voyager will not let you delete an item record that has circulation transactions pending against it, such as a record for a title that is charged out to a patron through the Circulation module. Deleted records stay in the system, even though we can’t view them.

2. To delete an item record:

     Display the item record. 

     Type [alt] r d to delete the record.

     Click on YES to confirm the deletion.
  

Deleting COO Holdings from OCLC

A. General Considerations

1. Records cataloged in Voyager have been exported to OCLC and our bibliographic (“COO”) holdings must be deleted from WorldCat whenever the Voyager BIB record is deleted or suppressed from the OPAC.

2. Deleting our bibliographic holdings from WorldCat will be done automatically overnight, except when BIB records cannot be deleted from Voyager because:

       a. they are attached to approved purchase orders or to item records with outstanding circulation transactions, AND

       b. they do not represent withdrawn titles. In this case, bibliographic holdings must be manually deleted from WorldCat.

B. Deleting Holdings from WorldCat Manually

1. “Deleting” records from OCLC means removing Cornell’s holdings symbol (“COO”) from the master record, not removing the master record itself.

2. Unless the Voyager BIB falls into the exceptional case described directly above in A.2, our holdings will be removed from OCLC automatically overnight.

3. To remove our holdings manually from WorldCat:

        Log on to OCLC using an update account.

        Display the bibliographic record from which you wish to delete Cornell’s holdings.

 

        From the Action menu, click Delete holdings or use [Shift] F8.

        For more information, see Delete Holdings on the OCLC Help menu.