An essential function in database clean-up and maintenance is merging duplicate records. Duplicate records are two or more bibliographic records that represent the same bibliographic entity, with the same publication information and physical description. Follow PINES policies and procedures to identify duplicate records. You can enter records to be merged in Record Buckets either using the Other actions menu within bibliographic records, baskets in search results and the OPAC view of a record, or using the Record Query function embedded within Record Buckets. Baskets and the record query allow you to add more than one record to a bucket at one time.

Keep in mind that merging records is actually merging the holdings from multiple records to the lead record and deleting the other bibliographic records from the database.

While viewing an individual title record in any view, from the Other Actions menu, you can add the record to a Record Bucket.

In this list of titles, there appears to be three duplicate records:

Check each suspected record in MARC View to determine if they should be merged. If there is not enough information in the record, you may need to check the item itself. You can also place the bibliographic records in a Record Bucket for a side-to-side comparison for final verification of their suitability for merging.

Place each record in a Record Bucket while viewing it by choosing Add to Bucket: from the Other Actions menu:

A dialog box will open for you to choose the bucket you use for merging or Add to New Bucket. If you add to new, you will need to name the new bucket.

Put each record to be merged in the same bucket.

You can also use the Record Query functionality within the record bucket interface to create a list of records to add to a bucket. Record Query allows you to add more than one bibliographic record at a time to a bucket. You can also add to multiple buckets using the pending record function.

Open Record buckets and click on the Record Query tab: