Understanding Warning and Error Alerts
- Error and Warning alerts indicate if an element in the record is invalid.
- Clicking on the text of the alert box will take your cursor to the field in the main pane with the problem
- Text in a yellow box is a warning. The record can be saved in this state.
- Text in a red box is an error. The record cannot be saved in this state.
More information about these alerts is available in ExLibris' Alerts on the Metadata Editor documentation.
Analysis and Recommendations
NOTE: The following recommendations are a DRAFT ONLY (5/3/21). Members of the "Wranglers" group are invited to review the recommendations and send suggestions or feedback to hamerman@princeton.edu .
Recommendations
Most validation alerts are “warnings” allowing the cataloging user to save the record.
The following are configured as errors in Alma’s default settings, requiring correction before releasing the record:
- Field * must be empty
- Mandatory field 245 is empty
- Mandatory field 245 is missing
- Mandatory field LDR is missing
- Multiple occurrences were found for non repeatable field 100
- Multiple occurrences were found for non repeatable field 110
- Multiple occurrences were found for non repeatable field 111
- Multiple occurrences were found for non repeatable field 245
The task group recommends upgrading the following from warnings to errors:
- Invalid indicators in fields 100, 110, 111
- Fields 100, 110, 111 are missing $a
- Field 245 is missing $a; or 245 $a, $b, $c are repeated
- 600, 610, 611, 630, 650, 651 fields are missing $a
- Invalid indicators in fields 700, 710, 711
- $a is missing in fields 700, 710
- Field 800 has invalid indicators
Other notes/recommendations
The task group also recommends adding a warning for invalid geographic codes in the 043, but this would only be possible if the MARC geographic codes were added to the Controlled Vocabulary Registry.
The group discussed the potential that Normalization Rules can be used to correct errors involving correspondence between fields. No warning/error will appear for these, as Alma only validates elements within a single field :
- 245 1st indicator is 1 or 0 depending on presence of 1xx
- If 040 $e is rda, add 33x fields (and possibly convert 260 → 264 _1?)
- 490 1st indicator is 1 or 0 depending on presence of 8xx
Solution: Editing Validation Processes and Validation Exception Profiles
Validation settings are configurable in Alma in the Cataloging Configuration menu, accessible by users with the Cataloging Administrator role. These settings are discussed in ExLibris' Editing Validation Processes documentation, linked here.
- Validation tasks for MARC Bibliographic Records can be added or removed using the Validation Processes tab.
- Validation Exception Profiles determine the severity of a validation error. Admins can add/edit a Validation Severity Profile to determine whether something is a ‘warning’ (yellow) or an ‘error’ (red).
- Systems staff (Peter Green and Regine Heberlein) will configure the validation settings to reflect the recommendations of the task group (as approved by the Wranglers group and Jennifer Baxmeyer)