Validating Online Serial Holdings with Help from a Worldcat API

Abstract

Maintaining knowledgebase holdings for individual journal subscriptions can be difficult, especially when publishers do not appropriately present title relationships, but a script-assisted workflow can validate holdings data and address title change problems, allowing for automated updating or checking of journal holdings. By making calls to the Worldcat xISSN API, a script can validate title relationships in journals holdings data downloaded from publishers. This validation, in turn, allows an automatic comparison of publisher holdings data and knowledgebase holdings data to identify problems or to make automatic updates, as appropriate. This presentation will explore the successes and challenges in applying both publisher holdings data validation and the subsequent knowledgebase holdings comparison.