Records and Their Ownership

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>Records in the PINES cataloging file consist of three levels.</font>

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>The first level is a bibliographic title record, containing cataloging information at title level (e.g., author, title, edition, publishing information, physical description, etc.).</font>

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>The second level is the volume record which contains the call number for the items.</font>

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>The third level of a cataloging record is an item record containing local holdings’ information such as circulation modifier, shelving or copy location, price, OPAC visibility, age protection, etc.</font>

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>Since only one bibliographic record for each unique entity should be entered into the database, the title record is “owned” by all participating systems. Local information of a library’s holdings belongs to the entering library. While adding, deleting, or editing a bibliographic record at the title level should be undertaken in accordance with PINES Copy Cataloging Specifications below, local library systems make their own decisions on local processing policies and procedures for handling their item information.</font>

<font 14px/inherit;;inherit;;inherit>Libraries participating in PINES should only make changes to their own Item Records. Consequently, only the “owning” library has the right—or the knowledge—to make changes. If someone working with a record notices what appears to be an error in an item record, or if a holding appears to be attached to an incorrect bibliographic record, a request to check on the matter should be sent to the cataloging contact person at the system in question. If many libraries need to be contacted, a message can be sent to the CAT-L. In such cases it is very helpful to list in the subject line the systems that need to do the checking. If there are too many to list, a more general notification may be sent.</font>

If your system is notified that there seems to be a problem with one of more of your item records, you have an obligation to check on the matter and to try to resolve any problems that you find. If resolution of a problem is not possible with the authorization level available within a system, it may need to be referred to http://help.georgialibraries.org.