Matching Records on the ISSN Field

Incoming Records with Multiple ISSN Fields

If the incoming record contains more than one ISSN field, the system performs a separate test for the value in each ISSN field until it finds a match in the index or determines there is no match.

If your INN-Reach System has enabled matching on ISSN as a Secondary Match Field, the system searches the 'i' index on the INN-Reach Central Server for the value contained in the incoming record's ISSN field. To identify an initial match, the system compares the value stored in the incoming ISSN field to all values in the 'i' index.

The system proceeds depending on the results:

System Finds an Index Match

If the system finds a match for the ISSN value in the 'i' index, it performs the following actions:

  1. (Optional) Compares the titles of the incoming and existing records.
    • If the titles match, the system proceeds to the next step.
    • If the titles do not match, the system does one of the following:
  2. Verifies the ISSN match. Because the 'i' index could contain a value that matches the incoming ISSN value, but is not associated with an ISSN field, the system verifies the match by normalizing the data in the MARC 022 fields in the incoming and existing records, and comparing the data directly.

    The system proceeds depending on the results of this comparison:
    • If the ISSN fields match, the system proceeds to the next step.
    • If the ISSN fields do not match, the system does one of the following:
  3. (Optional) Verifies whether the values in the Primary Match Fields for both the incoming and existing record are valid. Note that matchkeys are always valid.
    • If both values are valid and the Primary Match Fields contain different values, the records do not match on ISSN. (If the Primary Match Fields are valid and the same, the system would have already matched the records). The system does one of the following:
    • If either value is invalid, the records match. The system was unable to match the records earlier because the Primary Match Field values were invalid.

System Does Not Find an Index Match

If the system does not find a match for the ISSN value in the 'i' index, the system proceeds depending on whether your INN-Reach System has enabled matching on additional MARC-tagged field(s):