Re: Disappearing Items

["Michele M. Morgan" <mmorgan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

We occasionally have this problem in our consortium as well.  Usually it
happens when a Guicat workstation freezes with a record on the screen. 
We call them "ghost items".  A link exists from the item to the bib, but
there is no bib to item link.

Back in February, Eleta Grimbeek posted a way to gather records with
broken links into a review file and reestablish the links:

http://innovativeusers.org/list/archives/2002/msg00667.html

This doesn't quite work for us since bibs generally have multiple items
attached, but the same principle allows you to re-link problem items
individually as they are identified.

In the character system, Update existing records, choose item records
and retrieve the problem item by record number, or barcode.  From the
full item, choose to edit the bib record and edit a field in the bib. 
You don't want to actually change the field, just type it over or choose
the same fixed code to make the system think you have made a change so
you will get the opportunity to Save.  When you quit and make the
changes to the bib permanent, you should see that the bib-item link is
reestablished.

Rebecca Smallwood wrote:
> 
> The two times that we have run into this have been within MilCat.
> The person to whom this has happened speculated that it seemed to
> happen when the program was running very slowly, presumably because
> of server problems...
> 
> ***************************************************
> Rebecca Smallwood, Librarian
> Soka University of America
> 1 University Drive, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
> (949) 480-4113 rsmallwood@xxxxxxxxxx
> "The wise speak only of what they know."
> * TTT, J.R.R. Tolkien
> ***************************************************
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-- 
Michele Morgan, Technical Assistant
North of Boston Library Exchange, Danvers Massachusetts
mmorgan@xxxxxxxxxx
Ph: 978-777-8844
Fax: 978-750-8472