Comparing Medium Information in Incoming and Existing Bibliographic Records
Innovative can configure your INN-Reach Catalog to distinguish between print and non-print materials when evaluating incoming and existing records as potential matches. To do so, INN-Reach determines whether a MARC 245$h (Medium) subfield is present in the records. According to MARC standards, the absence or presence of the MARC 245$h subfield in a bibliographic record distinguishes printed from non-printed materials. If a MARC 245$h subfield is absent from a record, the medium is implicitly print. If a MARC 245$h field is present in a record, the medium is implicitly non-print; the subfield specifies information about the medium used.
If implemented, this evaluation is performed on potential matches identified by Primary Match Fields and Secondary Match Fields; the evaluation cannot be implemented for just Primary Match Fields or just Secondary Match Fields. To change whether or not the system determines whether medium information is present when evaluating potential matches, your Central System Administrator must contact Innovative.
If your INN-Reach Catalog is configured to distinguish between print and non-print materials, a print record (without a MARC 245$h subfield) can match only another record without the field, and a non-print record (with a MARC 245$h subfield) can match only a record with the field. Note that the system tests only for the presence or absence of the field; it does not compare the contents of the subfields to each other.
Possible outcomes of a medium information comparison are:
- If a MARC 245$h subfield is present in both the incoming and existing records, or is absent from both, the system stops the evaluation and proceeds as appropriate:
- If your INN-Reach System has been configured for additional evaluations (for example, title comparison), the system continues to the next evaluation of the potential matches.
- If no additional evaluations have been configured for your INN-Reach System, the system identifies the records as a match.
- If a MARC 245$h subfield is present in one record, but not the other, the system stops any further evaluation of the potential matches that your INN-Reach System might be configured to perform. It identifies the records as not a match.
If the MARC 245$h Field Contains "Large Print"
Depending on local cataloging practices, the MARC 245$h subfield might contain the phrase "large print", indicating that the bibliographic record represents printed materials even though the $h subfield is present. If libraries contributing to your INN-Reach Catalog use the MARC 245$h subfield to store large print indicators, it is recommended that your INN-Reach System also enable the large print indicator comparison, which keeps large print materials separate from both standard print and other media. For more information, see Comparing Large Print Indicators in Incoming and Existing Records.