Betsy Shipley wrote:
>Does anyone know how long it takes oclc to process error reports and is there
>a faster way to get it done? My problem is this:
>
>The lily yearbook oclc no. 3352520 was ceased and continued by:
>The lily yearbook of the North American Lily Society, Inc. oclo no. 10263903.
>On the title page of oclc no. 3352520 was also included the phrase ... of the
>north american lily society. I have sent in 3 error reports stating that in
>my opinion this was not a t.c. and to just update no. 3352520. Any
>suggestions,etc.?
>
> Betsy Shipley 20676bas@msu.edu
>
>By the way, someone said this could be done electronically except one has to
>make copies of of first, last, etc. I have already sent in the reports with
>all the verification--that was Jan. 1995.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Betsy,

Both records are CONSER-authenticated records.  66-90027/L [sic], the
earlier record, is an LC-authenticated *pre-AACR2* title entry record;
sn84-7475, the later title/record, is an NSDP-authenticated AACR2
record.  OCLC cannot merge, or collapse, two authenticated CONSER records.

You did not indicate that there was no title change as indicted by the
records, only that there was no title change according to AACR2r rule
21.2A1c.  In other words, I am assuming that the two titles differ
on the volumes just as they differ on the two bibliographic records.

Therefore, *AACR* rules are applied to the earlier record; there was a
title change, and the two records are correct.  A CONSER cataloger
facing the same situation today would update the earlier record to
AACR2 and thus avoid the the title change (and two records).  But in
1984, when the second record was created, updating to AACR2 was not an
option, if my memory is correct.  In fact, I'm not even certain when that
provision regarding non-title-changes that you refer to (which was an
LCRI before being incorporated into AACR2r) was first issued as an
LCRI.

It is possible, perhaps--just barely, I think--that the earlier record
(66-90027/L) was created according to the even-earlier ALA rules.  ALA
rules allowed for serial titles to be shortened in several different
ways.  The only way to tell if this is the case--and to tell if two
records in this case are indeed an error--is to see the actual
volumes covered by the earlier record.  Does your library have the
earlier volumes?

OCLC's procedure for requesting the collapse of serial records is given
in _Bibliographic Formats and Standards_, c1993, p. 62-63.
A collapse request for these two records (sent to OCLC on a
Bibliographic Record Change Request form) would be submitted by OCLC
to LC.  Frankly, unless the cataloging is truly incorrect, the
collapse of two otherwise perfectly correct bibliographic records
takes a very low priority in LC's Serial Record Division.  CONSER
libraries have, in fact, been instructed to not submit requests of
this sort.

        David Van Hoy, Principal
           Serials Cataloger
             MIT Libraries
               dcvh@mit.
                  edu
                   =