Attaching Regional Depositories’ OCLC Holding Symbols to GPO Cataloging
- Details
- Last Updated: July 17 2018
- Published: March 15 2017
The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) first began setting holdings for regional depository libraries in February 2005. OCLC’s discontinuation of their GPO Cataloging subscription service resulted in a change in processes, which caused a disruption of the regional holdings service in February 2016.
Subsequently, GPO worked with OCLC to attach regional holding symbols to 6,941 GPO cataloging records from February – June 2016. This was accomplished through exception processing, not new procedures that could be carried forward.
Since that time, GPO has continued to work with OCLC in setting up a mechanism, using WorldShare Collection Manager, which will allow GPO to continue to set holdings for regional depository libraries. In April 2017, GPO sent OCLC the next batch of records for which regional holdings were set. It included 14,412 records for GPO’s cataloging from July – December 2016. January – March 2017 quickly followed, and 7,241 records received holdings May 1, 2017. Now that procedures are set, GPO is attaching regional depositories’ OCLC holding symbols to its cataloging on a monthly basis.
| CATALOGING DATE | # RECORDS THAT RECEIVED HOLDINGS | # OF REGIONAL HOLDINGS SET |
|---|---|---|
| April 2017 | 2,691 | 80,730 |
| May 2017 | 2,715 | 81,450 |
| June 2017 | 2,532 | 75,960 |
| July 2017 | 2,345 | 70,350 |
GPO is committed to maintaining this service and apologizes for this inconvenience. The increased access that setting holdings facilitates is tremendous for millions of OCLC WorldCat users and Interlibrary Loan operations. From February 2005 - January 2016, GPO applied holding symbols more than 17 million times. Those regional depositories that have participated in this service for that same timeframe have had their OCLC symbol added to 522,172 records.
It is not too late to sign up to have your library’s OCLC symbol added to GPO cataloging records. This is a service that GPO provides almost exclusively to regional depository libraries. Participating regional depositories have their symbol added to all GPO bibliographic records produced, regardless of the format of the information product. Regionals may choose to use more than one OCLC symbol, though the symbols will be added to all records for both tangible and electronic titles – there is no custom item profiling for this service.
Depository libraries can also have holdings set by participating in GPO’s Cataloging Record Distribution Program (CRDP).
If you have further questions or are interested in having GPO add your library’s OCLC symbol to its cataloging, contact GPO’s This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..