Monday Minutes: Merging Records

by Kelly McElligott on Aug 26, 2024

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie will walk through the merging records process. With a new feature coming in 24.05, viewing the record prior to the merge is so much easier!

Merging Records

In 24.05, a new link will allow staff to easily see the full record in Koha before choosing which record to be record to keep! The enhancement, bug 35034, will be introduced to show the link of the record from the merging screen.

There are two ways to retrieve the records that staff would like to merge:

1. Cataloging Search

From the cataloging module, click on Cataloging, and the search bar will add a new option within the search to search the Catalog and the Reservoir. This search will give the results in a slightly different layout than a standard Search Catalog. The staff member will choose the records to merge, and use the MERGE button on the top of the results screen.

2. From a Search

When a staff member searches in the staff interface, within the results screen- there is a button "EDIT" that gives the staff the option once records are chosen, to merge them! A staff member does need permission which would allow them to edit the records. From this search, once records are chosen from the list, the EDIT button will be clickable, and the user can choose to MERGE these two records.

Let's Merge

Either way a library chooses to pick the records they wish to merge- will not change the process of actually merging the records. Once the merge has been selected, the staff member will then choose which record will be kept and which will be deleted. Koha calls the record that is getting kept, the reference record.

This is where we see the new linkage!! The title is now linked- clicking the title will bring the record up in Koha. Clicking on the MARC link will show the MARC view within a modal.

The reference records MARC fields will all be defaulted to be kept for the end result. However, a staff member can choose to eliminate any specific MARC fields from this reference record that they choose not to keep.

In this image, Koha has started the merging process by capturing all the MARC fields from the reference record and copying them to the "Destination" record. Any of these fields can be 'unchecked' meaning they won't copy over to the "destination" record.

In the other tab, there are the MARC fields that have yet to be copied over, so a user can choose to add MARC fields from the record that Koha is not keeping to the "destination" record. This is a true merge, giving the staff the ability to pick and choose which MARC fields from which records to keep and not keep.

Once the merge has been submitted, Koha will provide a link and the bibliographic number of the record kept and also the one that was deleted.