Bib - Short Records
What is this?
MARC records have variable length -- they can be up to 99999 characters long (!), but are usually significantly shorter. The length of a MARC record is stored in positions 00-04 of the leader.
When is this trouble?
A short record may be an indication that the resource is not fully cataloged (in various ways) so may be difficult to find in the catalog.
A short record may have been truncated and have substantial information missing.
A short record may be an acquisitions record (or shipping list record) that was not properly overlaid with a full catalog record. If there is a second (full) record in the catalog, both records for the resource may show up in the catalog or in reports and make it appear that there are multiple copies. If there is no full record, it may even indicate that the resource was never received.
How to Find
If you are in Alma, there is an analysis to search for this issue in the "Looking for Trouble" folder. Go to the "Bibliographic" folder and look for the "Short Records" analysis. By default, this analysis is looking for records that are shorter than 500 characters long, but you might want to change this for your own collection.
If you are in Voyager, you can run this SQL (BLOB) query:
SELECT BIB_ID, MID(RECORD_SEGMENT,1,5) FROM BIB_DATA WHERE SEQNUM='1' AND MID(RECORD_SEGMENT,1,5) < '00500';