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Demystifying Disclosure Discrepancies

November 1, 2024 Author: Nika WorthCategories:

All WEST-retained journal records are updated to include information about the WEST program, any validation work that has been performed, and the results of that validation work, according to the policies laid out in the WEST Disclosure Policy. 

The goal of disclosure of WEST-retained materials is to support WEST program’s primary goals to:

  • Preserve the scholarly print record for journals
  • Ensure access to distributed journal archives
  • Facilitate space reclamation

Disclosures do this by ensuring that all retained materials are explicitly marked as such to:

  • Prevent withdrawal of the retained copy
  • Provide information during WEST collections analyses to prevent duplication of effort and ensure targeted use of program and local resources to expand the WEST collections
  • Provide information to WEST member institutions and non-member institutions about the retention status of titles, affording them the opportunity to deselect local copies without fear of content loss at the network level
  • Ensure that retained materials are discoverable in local and union catalogs to support access to these materials

Retention commitments are disclosed to AGUA each year when institutions submit or update records that include the necessary 583 fields.

When members submit files to WEST for disclosures, the WEST Technical Team runs them through two different validator tools to check the metadata and ensure the records are in good order before loading to AGUA: an AGUA Validator and a metadata validator developed by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). These validators serve complementary purposes, and the output reports are made available to members to facilitate local data correction and cleanup projects to support both WEST and local needs. 

A full explanation of the various errors that may be surfaced by this process and what each error means can be found in Appendix 2 of the AGUA User Manual.

After disclosures are submitted to AGUA, the WEST program staff then sends them on to the Center for Research Libraries for inclusion in CRL’s Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR). CRL has its own validation process whereby they ensure that the data ingested into PAPR meets the standard they have set for inclusion. As part of this process, CRL also identifies possible errors in the data submitted to them, and it is these errors that dictate which retained items are visible in PAPR. 

Due to the different requirements and needs of our two programs, members may see a difference in the number of retention commitments which they are reported to hold in AGUA and the number which they are reported to hold in PAPR. Some of this discrepancy is due to an error which CRL reports which identifies holdings statements that contain bindings or completeness words.

For example:

866   3   1   ‡8 0 ‡a v.1(1941)-v.86(1987) bound in 2 v. per year ‡z Some issues missing

As pictured above, placing binding or completeness words in subfield a of the 866 field may result in the item being excluded from PAPR. CRL prefers to have this information represented through the 583 L and Z pair, which describe the condition or state of the described materials and the public note pertaining to the validation action. Although members can also choose to move this information to subfield z of the 866.

Since WEST does not require validation for low risk level materials (formally known as Bronze), where completeness and bindings notes are often captured in the holdings statement, these records may be dropped from PAPR. Additionally, even libraries who do engage in validation work and have these 583 L and Z pairs may find that some records are dropped from PAPR if the holdings statement still contains language about bindings or completeness in subfield a. 

No action is required from members to remediate this discrepancy between AGUA and PAPR. However, members who may already be engaged in, or would like to engage in, voluntary validation of low risk level materials and who want to format their records so that they are visible in PAPR may take the following steps:

  1. Translate any bindings or completeness words in the holdings statements into a 583 L Z pair.
  2. Remove those bindings and completeness words from subfield a of the affected holdings statements.

OR

  1. Remove any bindings or completeness words from subfield a of the holdings statement and move this information to subfield z.

We have updated Appendix 2 of the AGUA User Manual to describe these errors and the steps for remediation in more detail.