In Alma, ten levels of brief records can be defined from 01 through 10, where 01 represents the most brief record and 10 represents a full record. Various standards can be used to define the criteria of a brief record (such as the MARC and OCLC standards), brief level rules provide you with the flexibility and granularity for identifying the level of briefness of a bibliographic record that enhances your options for record updates. When importing a record from Connexion Client into Alma or performing batch imports, you will not be able to merge/replace an existing Alma record being merged/overlaid if the Alma record has a higher Brief Record Level than the record being imported. When saving a bibliographic record in MD Editor, the brief record level is calculated using the brief level rule that is defined and configured at local institution and saved with the bibliographic record. At Princeton, locally defined brief record level (see definitions below) is also used as one of the criteria to extract eligible records for OCLC data synchronization. Records below brief level 4 (i.e., levels 1-3) will not be retrieved for the process.

Identifying Brief Record Level in Alma

From Alma Record View page

In the image below, you'll see, on the right pane, the Brief level (08).

In MD Editor

The record brief level can be found below the menu bar on the top (08 in the middle dark blue rectangle)

Princeton’s Alma Record Brief Level Definition (adopted from Harvard’s practice)

Alma Brief Level	Level Definition	Explanation/Note
01	Missing 245	Lacks 245 $a or $k. No records should be at Level 1 because all records require at least 245 $a or $k. The rule is processed first, and no further tests are made if the record meets the criteria.
02	Insufficient elements for reporting to OCLC	Records that are missing mandatory elements for reporting to OCLC, or have too few elements for us to confidently send them to OCLC. These will be excluded from the Data Sync process. Evaluation criteria are listed below this table. (Note that there are other factors that may prevent something from being reported to OCLC, regardless of whether it passes this level, such as the presence of a 914, or the suppression of a bib). The rule is processed second, and no further tests are made if the record meets the criteria.
03	Non-English cataloging	Assigned to non-English cataloging records: 040 $b is present and does not have "eng." If the record has an 011 field (see above) it will be assigned level 02. The rule is processed third, and no further tests are made if the record meets the criteria.
Any record which does not meet one of the levels above, will be assigned one of the levels below. The levels below are mutually exclusive.
04	Encoding level - u/x/z	LDR/17= u / x / z
05	Encoding level - 5	LDR/17 = 5
06	Encoding level - 3	LDR/17 = 3
07	Encoding level - Minimal	LDR/17 = 7 / K / M
08	Encoding level - Full	LDR/17 = blank / 1 / I
09	Encoding level - Any other encoding levels	Any encoding level not previously specified.
10	(not in use)

Criteria for having sufficient elements for reporting to OCLC:

Record, any type, must meet the conditions below, unless it has an OCLC number. If it has an OCLC number, it will be reported to OCLC regardless of elements (unless it has a 914)

008/07-10 (Date1) must not be blank (#)

008/15-17 (Place of pub) must not be blank (#)

008/35-37 (Language) must not be blank (#)

245 $a or $k

260 $a or 264 $a, unless Type = manuscript (b, d, f, p, t) or Bib Level = Collection (c)

300 $a or 300 $f

1XX $a or 7XX $a or 6XX $a, unless Bib Level = serial/integrating resource (s, i)

(the 6XX test will help account for material that has no author, and has been cataloged)

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