The Library sought to assess this performance indicator:

"What is the quality of MARC records imported into our local automated circulation system as well as the quality of the physical processing of our material?"

An acceptable qualifier is that 5% or less of the records would have errors.

Methodology

Staff pulled a random sample of 100 items from our shelves: 80 from our general collection and 20 from our special collections. Samples were determined by using our search database to find items added within the last year in all major subject areas.

Findings

• Errors in physical processing: NONE

• Errors in MARC records: 20% of the sample records had errors. These errors were of two types:

1. Major errors - 4%

These errors are those that affect the access to our data by our patrons. That is, these errors were sufficient enough that the materials they represented could not be located by any search in our Public Access Catalog (PAC), therefore making these materials, for all practical purposes, unavailable to our patrons.
2. Minor errors - 16%

These errors were mistakes in punctuation, spacing, etc. that have no practical effect on locating these materials and therefore, does not affect service to our patrons.

Conclusion

Although the overall rate of error was 20%, only 4% were of major concern and would affect service to our patrons. Therefore, the quality of our MARC records is acceptable, although there is obvious room for improvement. The errors in the MARC records are a result of third party input from our vendor, OCLC, and not the result of input from our staff. We need to be more diligent in examining these records for errors.

Measures to Take

All records will now be reviewed by two staff members: the original member who processes the material plus a second staff member who will ONLY review the MARC record for errors.