Cleaning Up the Catalog

Various automated processes identify records that are no longer linked to other records, delete records, retain records after deleting them, and purge deleted records from the database. To identify records that may need to be deleted, you can search for records that meet certain criteria and gather them in a record set automatically. For example, you could search for item records for materials that have not circulated in several years, gather them in a record set, and delete them after removing the materials from the shelves.

If you are looking for records that are not linked to any other records, you can create record sets of unlinked bibliographic or authority records automatically. See Create a record set of unlinked records. Then, you can delete the records right from the record set if they are no longer needed. You can also use cataloging and circulation reports to identify records that may need to be deleted.

The Polaris Administration Cataloging profiles Retain deleted bibliographic records, Retain item records, and Retain authority records control whether records are immediately removed from the database or marked with a status of deleted and retained until they are permanently removed from the database using a batch purge. See Retain deleted records. To permanently delete the retained records, you must set up purge criteria in a Purge record. See Purge cataloging records.

Note:
If the item record is linked to a serial issue record, and the Polaris Serials/Acquisitions parameter Delete linked issue/part when serial item is deleted is set to Yes, the issue or part is deleted when you delete the item.

In addition to cleaning up unused records, you can remove tags from bibliographic records after they are marked as processed. These processing tags include 970 tags for building purchase orders, and 852, 949 or other tags used in building item records from embedded holdings tags. See Setting Utility to Delete Bib Tags Marked with Subfield 9.