WorldCat Metadata API 2.0 release notes, September 2024
Release Date: September 2024
Introduction
This release of WorldCat Metadata API 2.0 provides two new enhancements. These enhancements will help you manage more complex workflows, including:
- Unset a holding on bibliographic records with associated Local Bibliographic Data (LBD) and/or Local Holding Records (LHR).
- Retrieve a bibliographic record in JSON format with the new "bibs/{oclcNumber}" endpoint.
These enhancements are a direct result of your feedback.
Recommended actions
For this release, we recommend that you review the following and determine if any adjustments are needed for your workflows.
Administrative actions
These items require immediate action or decisions.
| Action |
|---|
|
If you want to retain or be made aware of LBDs and/or LHRs on bibliographic records prior to unsetting, you must adjust calls made to POST/worldcat/manage/institution/holdings/unset and POST/worldcat/manage/institution/holdings/{oclcNumber}/unset calls to set the cascadeDelete parameter to FALSE. If no action is taken, the cascadeDelete parameter is set to TRUE by default, and therefore enabled. |
New features and enhancements
Unset a holding on a bibliographic record and remove associated LBDs and/or LHRs
cascadeDelete parameter
Users have requested the ability to simultaneously unset a holding and remove any Local Bibliographic Data (LBD) and/or Local Holdings Records (LHR) associated with the WorldCat bibliographic record. Adding the cascadeDelete parameter to unset holdings calls now allows for that workflow. Cascade delete can be enabled on the POST/worldcat/manage/institution/holdings/unset and POST/worldcat/manage/institution/holdings/{oclcNumber}/unset calls with a TRUE or FALSE parameter value. This parameter is optional, however, cascade delete is enabled by default.
cascadeDelete = TRUE is the default value and will automatically remove LBDs and/or LHRs associated with the target record.
cascadeDelete = FALSE will retain LBDs and/or LHRs associated with a target record and will not unset a holding if LBDs and/or LHRs are present.
Previously, you had to remove LBDs and/or LHRs from a record prior to unsetting holdings.
Bibs Endpoint
GET/bibs/{oclcNumber}
Users have requested the ability to retrieve bibliographic records in other formats. Given an OCLC number, the /bibs/{oclcNumber} endpoint will retrieve a bibliographic record in JSON format.
Previously, this metadata was only available in MARC format.
Example response:
"identifier": {
"oclcNumber": "311684437",
"lccn": "2008937609",
"isbns": [
"9781594743344",
"1594743347",
"9781594743351",
"1594743355",
"9781594744518",
"1594744513"
],
"externalIdentifiers": [
{
"oclcSymbol": "AU@",
"systemControlNumber": 43839587
},
{
"oclcSymbol": "AU@",
"systemControlNumber": "000044205433"
},
],
"mergedOclcNumbers": [
"261176486",
"330361568",
"377707240",
"426228842",
"701739996",
"716923895",
"731216527",
"887752101",
"945738851"
]
},
"title": {
"mainTitles": [
{
"text": "Pride and prejudice and zombies : the classic regency romance--now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem / by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith."
}
],
"seriesTitles": [
{
"seriesTitle": "Quirk classics"
},
{
"seriesTitle": "Quirk classics."
}
]
},
"contributor": {
"creators": [
{
"firstName": {
"text": "Seth."
},
"secondName": {
"text": "Grahame-Smith"
},
"type": "person"
},
{
"firstName": {
"text": "Jane"
},
"secondName": {
"text": "Austen"
},
"type": "person",
"creatorNotes": [
"1775-1817."
]
}
]
},
"subjects": [
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 Parodies, imitations, etc."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Bennet, Elizabeth (Fictitious character) Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Darcy, Fitzwilliam (Fictitious character) Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 Parodies, imitations, etc."
},
"vocabulary": "sears",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Austen, Jane, 1775-1817."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Bennet, Elizabeth (Fictitious character)"
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Darcy, Fitzwilliam (Fictitious character)"
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "personalName"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Zombies Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Young women England Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Social classes England Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Sisters Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Darcy, Fitzwilliam (Fictional character) Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "sears",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Bennet, Elizabeth (Fictional character) Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "sears",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Zombies Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "sears",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Sisters."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Social classes."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Young women."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Zombies."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "topic"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "England Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "geographicalTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "England."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "geographicalTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Horror tales."
},
"vocabulary": "Library of Congress Subject Headings",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Regency fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "gsafd",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Regency novels."
},
"vocabulary": "sears",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Fiction."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Horror tales."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
},
{
"subjectName": {
"text": "Parodies, imitations, etc."
},
"vocabulary": "fast",
"subjectType": "genreFormTerm"
}
],
"classification": {
"dewey": "813/.6",
"lc": "PS3607.R348 P75 2009"
},
"publishers": [
{
"publisherName": {
"text": "Quirk Books ; Distributed in North America by Chronicle Books"
},
"publicationPlace": "Philadelphia :, San Francisco :"
}
],
"date": {
"publicationDate": "©2009.",
"createDate": "20080916",
"replaceDate": "20160418"
},
"language": {
"catalogingLanguage": "eng"
},
"edition": {},
"note": {},
"format": {
"generalFormat": "Book",
"specificFormat": "PrintBook",
"materialTypes": [
"fic"
]
},
"musicInfo": {},
"description": {
"physicalDescription": "335 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.",
"genres": [
"Horror tales.",
"Regency fiction.",
"Regency novels.",
"Fiction.",
"Parodies, imitations, etc."
],
"summaries": [
{
"text": "As a mysterious plague falls upon the village of Meryton and zombies start rising from the dead, Elizabeth Bennet is determined to destroy the evil menace, but becomes distracted by the arrival of the dashing and arrogant Mr. Darcy."
}
],
"peerReviewed": "N"
},
"related": {},
"work": {
"id": "2289778060",
"count": 54
},
"editionCluster": {
"id": "d1627d1ae0c1cfa1446621aa64d1313a",
"count": 11
},
"totalEditions": 9,
"database": {
"source": "xwc",
"collection": "xwc"
}
Important links
WorldCat Validation release notes
WorldCat Validation release notes provide current OCLC-MARC updates; changes to tagging conventions and coding practices for Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings records; and new MARC codes.
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