Name: Deletion (Withdrawal) Policy
Status: Approved
Last revised: August 10, 2022
Written by: Rebecca Hyams
Policy:
To ensure that records kept in the system are an accurate representation of each library’s holdings, and that records aren’t being kept for “statistical purposes.” Additionally, as our costs for Alma factor in the number of records in the system as a whole, maintaining records for items no longer held by a library is a financial liability.
In the Alma hierarchy there are three types of records that can be withdrawn (deleted) from the system: bibliographic records (bibs), holdings, and items. Holdings records and item records live in each library’s Institution Zone (IZ), and bibliographic records may live in either the CUNY Network Zone (NZ) or the library’s IZ (see other policies). This policy covers individual library records as well as the CUNY NZ.
As Alma maintains all of its historical data within the Analytics database, there is no need to maintain records that are simply there for statistical purposes, as was the practice in previous systems. In general, records should not be suppressed or put in a special location in Alma in lieu of actually deleting them if the item in question is no longer part of the library’s collection. Holdings, items, and IZ-only bibliographic records for materials that have been removed from the library’s collection should be withdrawn (deleted) from Alma at the time of discard. This can be done individually or in batch process.
When the last item on a holding is deleted, the associated (now empty) holding should be deleted as well. If the item is the last item on a bibliographic record and the bibliographic record is local to the library’s IZ, the bibliographic record should also be deleted. However, if the bibliographic record resides in the CUNY NZ, the link to the NZ version of the record should be broken before deleting the now-local version. (If being done in batch processing, these parts are automated, and thus are recommended.)
For bibliographic records held in the CUNY NZ (the overwhelming majority of bibliographic records), individual libraries should not delete records from the NZ directly, even if there are no other holdings on the record at other libraries. To request that childless bibliographic records be removed, a ticket needs to be created to inform OLS, and those tasked with managing the Network Zone records will perform the requested deletes as appropriate. This is to ensure that libraries don’t accidentally remove records needed by another library or for another purpose.