• Resource Sharing
• July-August 2006
• Issue: 204

Creating a LAND Custom Holdings Group in WorldCat Resource Sharing

If your library participates in LAND (Libraries and Nylink Deliver), you may wish to create a LAND Custom Holdings Group. Custom Holdings is an OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing feature that allows you to automatically display holdings for groups of preferred lenders.

Creating Groups and Paths

To use Custom Holdings, you must first create Holdings Group records and Holdings Path records.

A Holdings Group record contains the OCLC symbols of preferred lenders for a particular category of borrowing activities, for example, FREEBKS, LAND, ZERO, LVIS. Each group is identified by a unique name containing from 1-8 alpha-numeric characters.

A Holdings Path record contains the names of Holdings Group records appropriate to a set of requests. Within the Holdings Path record, you list the Holdings Group records in order of borrowing preference. Each Path is identified by a unique name containing from 1-8 alpha-numeric characters.

Custom Holdings groups and paths are created in the FirstSearch Administrative Module:

• Go to < http://firstsearch.oclc.org/admin >.
• Log on using your OCLC WorldCat Resource sharing authorization and password.
• Click the Resource Sharing section of the main menu, then choose Custom Holdings Groups from the drop-down list under Staff ILL Settings in the sidebar menu.
• To create a new Holdings Group, click the New Blank Record button.
• Type a group name in the Group Name box.
• Type a group description in the Group Description box.
• In the Symbols to be added box, type the OCLC symbols of the institutions you wish to add. To add multiple symbols, separate each symbol with either a space or comma. Click the Add Symbols button.
• When all symbols have been added, click the Save Changes button.
• Repeat steps 1-8 to create additional Holdings Groups.

An easy way to create a custom holdings group for LAND (or any other OCLC profiled group) is to use the Policies Directory to retrieve all of the members of an OCLC profiled group. The resulting list is formatted so that it may be pasted into a custom holding group record.

There is a link to the Policies Directory at the upper right corner of the WorldCat Resource Sharing Administrative Module screen.

• Click the Policies Directory link. A new window will open..
• To retrieve a list of all LAND participants, go to the Advanced Search screen and enter the 4 character code “LAND” under the group name. Use quotation marks before and after LAND to make the search more accurate.
• Click Search. The search Results Summary screen displays.
• Click Display Symbols. The list of symbols is formatted so that they may be pasted into a Custom Holdings Group record.
• Highlight the list and select Copy from the edit menu.
• Return to the Administrative Module and go to the Custom Holdings Group screen (see above).
• Click the New Blank Record button.
• Type a group name in the Group Name box.
• Type a group description in the Group Description box.
• Right click in the Symbols to be added box. Select paste from the menu. The OCLC codes for all LAND members will be pasted into your Custom Holding Record.
• Click Save Change.

Creating Custom Holdings Paths

After creating Custom Holdings Groups, the next step is to create a Custom Holdings Paths.

• 1. Go to < http://firstsearch.oclc.org/admin >.
• 2. Log on using your OCLC resource sharing authorization and password.
• 3. Click the Resource Sharing section of the main menu, then choose Custom Holdings Paths from the drop-down list under Staff ILL Settings in the sidebar menu.
• 4. To create a new Holdings Path, click the New Blank Record button. (To edit an existing path, select the pathname from the drop-down list, and click Go.)
• 5. Type a path name in the Path Name box.
• 6. Type a path description in the Path Description box.
• 7. Select the groups you want to add from the Groups available to be included in the path box by highlighting them. Click the Add button. This will move that group to the Groups chosen to be included in the path box. If you accidentally add a group, select it and click the Remove button to remove it. Groups may be positioned in the path by selecting a group and then using the up and down arrows.
• 8. When you are finished adding groups, click the Save Changes button.

Additional information on Custom Holdings is available on the OCLC web site at: http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/firstsearch/managing/adminref/admin_ref_ custom_gen/admin_ref_custom_gen.htm.

OCLC has also produced a Custom Holdings tutorial: http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/tutorials/ firstsearch/rs/customholdings.html.

If you have questions about OCLC Custom Holdings, please contact Jon Penn at Nylink (518-443-5444/800-342-3353).

Please Note: Articles on Local Holdings Maintenance (Formerly Union Listing) can now be found in the Collections & Technical Services section of Status Line.