Merge Duplicate Title Records for the District

Your district database may contain several title records for the same item. Whether the duplicate records came from site imports, or title imports at multiple sites, Merge Duplicates can find and eliminate them.

It examines all the title records in your district collection and discovers the duplicates.
From each group of duplicates, it selects the Best title record, moves any local tags and copy records (including any transactions and statistics) onto it, and deletes the others.

If you want to eliminate duplicate records manually, you can add them to a Resource List, then evaluate and merge them there.

To merge the duplicates

  1. Log in as a district user with the Manage Library Materials for the District permission.
  2. Select Catalog > Update Titles > Merge Duplicates sub-tab.
  3. From the For drop-down, select the district or an individual library.
    Note: Select the district to eliminate all the duplicates in the district database, or just a school to eliminate duplicates for that school's records in the district database.
  4. If you want to limit the process to just the title records updated in a particular date range, enter the dates in the Last Updated fields or click the calendar icon for a calendar.
    • You can leave both fields blank to examine and merge all the title records.
    • If you leave the first field blank and enter a date in the second field, Destiny examines titles updated before and on the date in the second field.
    • If you enter a date in the first field and leave the second field blank, Destiny examines titles updated on that date and later.
    • If you enter the same date in both fields, Destiny examines just the titles updated on that one date.
  5. In the Title Matching section, select how you want Library Manager to compare the incoming records for a match in your catalog:
    • Strict: Follett recommends strict title matching, which requires a match on the LCCN, ISBN or ISSN, plus the title and material type. If the author and publication dates are present, they are also compared. However, you can select Remove the author requirement from the strict matching rules. If an incoming record contains a 13-digit ISBN and your district collection record has the 10-digit form of that ISBN – or the reverse – Library Manager considers them the same ISBN.
    • Relaxed: Destiny Library Manager matches title records based on title, material type, author and publication date if a standard number is not found. If you do not mind that a title has different publication dates and standard numbers, you can also select Remove the standard number and publication date requirements from the relaxed matching rules.
  6. To begin the process, click Merge.

The merge creates a Job Summary in the Admin > Job Manager.
For each Best record, it lists the title (complete 245 tag), its Control Number (001), the number of copies moved to it, and the Control Numbers from the deleted title records.

The Best record

Once Destiny determines that two or more records are duplicates, it then determines which one is the Best record by comparing the number of note tags (500-525, 527-589) and subject (600-657, 659-689) tags in the records. If all the records contain exactly the same number of subjects and notes, Destiny finally considers the overall size of each record.

Record changes

The merge process affects your collection in the following ways:

  • With one exception (see next bullet), it does not merge or alter any information in the title records.
  • It adds any local tags in the other title records to the best title record. If any of these additions are duplicates of those already in the Best title record, the tags are merged. This includes the following:
    • 521
    • 526
    • 590-599
    • 658
    • 690-699 (including site-specific subjects)
    • 790-799
    • 856
    • 900-939
    • 941-999
  • After merging the copies onto the Best title record, the process permanently deletes the other title records.
  • The copy records retain any checkout information, fines, holds or reserves that they had before the merge.