Determining and Reporting Duplicate Records

Duplicate records consist of two or more bibliographic records describing the same bibliographic item.

The principal categories of duplicates most frequently encountered are monographic and serial duplicates.

Serial Duplicate Records

Owing to the frequently complex histories of serial titles, members are strongly encouraged to report all potential serial duplicates for review by the Australian National Bibliographic Database staff using the duplicate records reporting form (below).

Monograph Duplicate Records

When duplicate records are discovered, Libraries Australia members should report the potential duplicate records to the Help Desk using the duplicate records reporting form (below), indicating the preferred record for retention and the one for deletion.

Identifying Duplicates

Duplicate records come from a variety of sources and in a variety of guises.

The following provides an overview of the most common areas considered when determining whether or not an item is a duplicate.

Where possible, always work with the item in hand.

Title and statement of responsibility [MARC21 : 245].

Compare the 245 field of each record to see whether they are identical. Disregard any minor differences in punctuation and capitalisation. Use your discretion where data has been transposed, since layout or typeface might have influenced the cataloguer's choice of title and subtitle

Publication, distribution, etc., area [MARC21 : 260].

Compare the 260 fields. If the 260 fields are different assume that the records are not duplicates. The following exceptions apply:

Note: Be particularly careful when checking records created for the Retrospective National Bibliography project. If the same data is present with and without square brackets, consider that a match does not exist.

If the 245 and 260 fields are the same, compare the Edition area [MARC21 : 250] and the Physical description area [MARC21 : 300]. If everything else matches and the only difference in the 300 field is that one record contains specific pagination, and the other contains "1 v.", consider that a match exists and the records are duplicates.

Please see determining duplicate records: monograph guidelines for detailed information on determining duplicate monograph records.

Duplicate records reporting form (link opens in new window)

 

Page last updated: 6 October 2009