Re: " I have no idea why there are different practices or what the purpose was of leaving the non-working URL in 856|u."  I'm not certain, but I can hazard a guess: because a URL may appear broken but either (a) come "back to life" later--i.e. the URL is only disabled at the time the cataloger is inspecting it, not permanently; or (b) still be locally-valid to some institutions?  

--Ben

Benjamin Abrahamse
Cataloging Coordinator
Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems
MIT Libraries
617-253-7137


-----Original Message-----
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven C Shadle
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 5:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Question re invalid URLs in 856

Greta -- TBH, I have no idea why there are different practices or what the purpose was of leaving the non-working URL in 856|u.  It was in place before we made the recent update to the CCM module.  Anyone have any idea what the reasoning was behind the CONSER decision?  --Steve

Steve Shadle/Serials Access Librarian         [log in to unmask]
NASIG President
University of Washington Libraries              Phone: (206) 685-3983
Seattle, WA 98195-2900                            Fax: (206) 543-0854

On Mon, 21 May 2012, Greta de Groat wrote:

> I have a question about PCC practice for the URLs for internet 
> resources that are no longer available.
>
> LRI 9.7B says the following
>
> 2) If searching indicates that the resource is no longer available, 
> create a note to reflect this fact by changing subfield $u in field 
> 856 to subfield $z and modifying the subfield to show that the 
> resource is no longer available, indicating the last date that the resource was searched. ...
>
> and gives the example
> revised record
> 856 41 $z Electronic address (http://www.example.com) not available 
> when searched on [date]
>
> However CONSER cataloging module module 31 (dated March 2012) says:
>
> If the only link appearing on the CONSER record is an invalid link, it 
> can be left on the record and labeled as invalid in the subfield $z of 
> the 856 field. Note that the second indicator is blank and that the 
> non-working URL is maintained in subfield $u of the 856. This coding 
> differs from LC practice documented in LCRI 9.7B where the non-working 
> URL is moved to a subfield z so that it does not appear on LC’s link 
> checking reports repeatedly. The example below is based on a 
> recommendation from OCLC and is derived from current system indexing 
> needs and OCLC'€™s electronic address checking software (see OCLC'€™s recommendation at:
> http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/cataloging/electronicresources/).
> 856 4# $z Link no longer valid as of Dec. 4, 2000 $u http://www...
>
> So, we're confused about which practice to follow, since it seems that 
> there are two conflicting PCC practices. This is also causing us 
> problems internally in our opac, since we can't suppress the display 
> of a hotlink if the URL is in $u. And we don't quite understand why 
> one would use a public rather than non-public note ($x) for this.
>
>
> Thanks
> Greta de Groat
> Stanford University Libraries
>