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Create a print serial collection

WorldShare Management Services and WorldCat Discovery libraries create print serial knowledge base collections so patrons can find them alongside their electronic serial titles.

About adding print periodicals in your knowledge base

Represent your print serials in order to:

  • Add print titles to the link resolver to surface them alongside full-text resources in your A to Z list
    • Titles will not surface in WorldCat Discovery.
  • Optimize the discovery of full-text resources by using coverage to determine article holdings in WorldCat Discovery

 Caution:  WorldCat holdings are removed if a title or collection is removed from the Collection Manager knowledge base. If you delete a Print Serials collection in Collection Manager and the title contains Local Bibliographic Data, the WorldCat holdings and LBD will be deleted from the titles in the collection. If the collection is deleted in Collection Manager but the titles contain Local Holdings Records, the WorldCat holding and LHR will be retained. 

How to create a collection of print serials

Gather information about your print titles

One option for doing this is to:

  1. Create a query collection for print materials using WorldCat Selection Criteria. Download a file of MARC records. For instructions, see Create a query collection.
  2. Use a third-party tool to extract data from the records to create a KBART file. For instructions, see Create a spreadsheet of your WorldCat holdings.

Another option is to collect a list of OCLC numbers for your items.

Create a print serials collection in Collection Manager

Follow the instructions to Create a knowledge base collection in Collection Manager.

Before you create your collection, please note:

  • The instructions include the option to create a collection using a list of OCLC numbers. Afterward, you must add your coverage information.
  • Enter the below information to have the print serials links in the A to Z list go to the record in WorldCat Discovery:
    • From the Collection-level settings:
      • Enter https://[[yourlibrary]].on.worldcat.org/search?queryString=in:[[ISSN]] as the Title Link Formula.
      • Enter [[ISSN]] as the Database Linking Key setting.

For more information about the A to Z list, see A - Z List and OCLC Link Resolver.

Enable the institution-level setting for coverage

After you create the collection, navigate in Collection Manager to Institution Settings > WorldCat Discovery > Coverage and enable the coverage settings. See Coverage for more information. 

 Note: It is recommended that you do not enable the setting until after you have represented your print serial collections.