Cataloging Manual

General Principles

1. OPAL bibliographic records will be added and maintained in accordance with the following general principles:
   • National cataloging standards will be maintained. See Appendix A. For exceptions to national cataloging standards, See Appendix K.
   • OPAL bibliographic records will be shared by the consortium and should contain minimal local information. See Explanation.
   • Duplicate records should be avoided.
   • Bib records lacking an 001 OCLC number should be suppressed from the OhioLINK Central catalog with a bib SUPPRESS=z and item ICODE2=z.
   • Where a record doesn't exist in OCLC, deriving a record in Connexion can facilitate original cataloging.
   • Before exporting bib records from OCLC into the OPAL database, OPAL catalogers should review the records PRIOR to export and remove any 856 field that links to a resource that isn't publicly accessible.  Any OPAL cataloger encountering a restricted-access resource in a bib record 856 is free to remove the 856 without asking any of the holding libraries. Please note: Links to restricted -access resources are only permitted in item records; those item records should be suppressed from OhioLINK using ICODE2=z. 
2. OPAL authority records are shared and maintained by the system administrators and MARCIVE.
3. BEFORE exporting, all libraries must first search the OPAL catalog by OCLC number to determine if a bibliographic record already exists for an item to avoid duplicate records in the system.
4. All bibliographic records must have at least an attached checkin, item, or order record.
5. Records for the following online content are not permitted (see Electronic Resource Cataloging):