CRL records in Alma/Primo (DRAFT)

ERES Policy

ERES recommends activating for CDI only, “Link in Record” URLs for the following CRL collections in the NZ:

1. CRL Catalog (Collection ID: 613780000000001458)

2. CRL Journals and Newspapers (Collection ID: 61670816660000041)

After updates to CRL CZ collections by CRL and ExLibris, effectively the CDI records of the “CRL Catalog” collection correspond to monographs titles and the CDI records of the “CRL Journals and Newspapers” collection correspond to serials titles available in the CRL online catalog. ERES does not recommend activating electronic portfolios for any other CZ CRL collections, due to the low Average Bibliographic Rank of the records in these collections, and the high total number of portfolios (see list below from Oct 2024).

Background

Phase 4 https://uc-sils.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/P4D/pages/1845167770

Prior to the migration RMFG had a recommendation to potentially activate the CRL Catalog collection in order to recreate the discovery environment we had for CRL resources in Melvyl. Consulted with UCLA RMCMOS rep, Hermine Vermeij, and we agreed that while this originally started as a RMFG decision, since it was dealing with CZ collections, it seemed like a question for ERES.

Notes from SILS ERES discussion https://uc-sils.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ER/pages/2175041537 :

After some review, I think there’s the following breakdown of resources in the various CRL CZ collections: 

1. CRL Monographs/Newspapers/Serials (both OA and non-OA): These collections seem to contain titles that have been digitized and are available for CRL members (or everybody for the OA collections). These all contain portfolios, but aren’t indexed in the CDI.

2. CRL Catalog: This looks to be just for titles that haven’t been digitized, so are available for members to ILL. This collection only has two portfolios, but has millions(?) of titles indexed in the CDI. 

3. CZ collections in Alma:

   1. CRL Catalog

   2. CRL Monographs

   3. CRL Newspapers

   4. CRL Open Access Monographs

   5. CRL Open Access Newspapers

   6. CRL Open Access Serials

   7. CRL Serials

ExLibris Support Cases highlights:

May 2025 - Consortia case#07705603. Update from ExL: the CRL MARC records have been indexed in CDI, and a new collection has been added for them: "CRL Journals and Newspapers" (Collection ID: 61670816660000041).

Please note that the number of records in CDI is not identical to the number of portfolios in the link resolver collections ('CRL Serials' and 'CRL Newspapers'), which are based on a KBART feed. This is because the link resolver portfolios represent individual links to specific volumes or issues, while the MARC records in CDI link to a single catalog record per publication in the CRL Catalog.

Oct 2024 - Consortia case#07705603. Update from UC: Can you ask if/when they will be adding CDI records/links for the digitized CRL collections (particularly serials/newspapers) they recommended activating (in the link above, list pasted below)?

We are uncomfortable asking CDL to activate the portfolios in these collections - the Average Bibliographic Rank (in parentheses) is very low and the number of portfolios is not insignificant (even excluding the Monographs, which can be activated through the CRL Catalog database collection in CDI)

CRL Open Access Monographs (33.22) - 9664 portfolios
CRL Open Access Newspapers (25.92) - 2100 portfolios
CRL Open Access Serials (42.24) - 1302 portfolios
CRL Monographs (32.73) - 28082 portfolios
CRL Newspapers (37.1) - 2648 portfolios
CRL Serials (42.44) - 2746 portfolios

Ideally we would like one of these two scenarios:

1. Add CDI records for serials to the CRL Catalog collection. (even for those without an 856 URL from CRL)

2. Update the format specific collections:

a. Improve the CZ records in all of the collections since the vast majority are very brief AND/OR
b. Index all of the collections in the CDI

June 2023 - CRL staff (Amy Wood) are in contact with ExLibris Support and working to correct the metadata feed for the CRL Catalog collection. UCLA Case#06798415 still open.

ExLibris changed the CRL Catalog collection to a zero-title database with CDI records. Unfortunately the CDI records do not contain any serials sent by CRL. ExL claims that the serials were not added to CDI because some records lack URLs. The format specific collections have portfolios for all content, except the CZ records are very brief. The format specific collections do not have CDI records. ExL may be working on indexing them in CDI, but the timeline is unclear. ERES would prefer to have all content as CDI records in the CRL Catalog collection to avoid activating thousands of CZ portfolios.

When this work is complete, ERES will make a recommendation for the activation of which CRL collection(s) to ensure that records are surfaced for UC users