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Created by
Pamela Parish, last updated by Laura E. Daniels on Dec 11, 2025
2 minute read
Scope: This procedure contains instructions for deleting bibliographic, holdings, and item records from FOLIO, as well as for deleting Cornell holdings from OCLC WorldCat. Only staff with the appropriate authorizations will be able to delete records.
Contact: Jenn Colt, Laura Daniels, Pedro Arroyo
Unit: Post Cataloging Services
Date last updated:
Date of next review: July 2025
Authority Records
NACO Authority Records:
- Send requests to delete authority records from the national file to the CUL NACO Coordinator.
Bibliographic Records
Instance and underlying source MARC records cannot be deleted manually from FOLIO. They can, however, be marked to be deleted.
A. General Considerations
1. Records cataloged in FOLIO have holdings set in OCLC and our bibliographic (“COO”) holdings must be deleted from WorldCat whenever the FOLIO Instance record is deleted or suppressed from the public catalog.
2. Deleting our bibliographic holdings from WorldCat is not currently done overnight.
b. In future, our holdings will be automatically deleted when an instance record is suppressed from public display.
3. Our OCLC holdings will not be deleted when more than one unsuppressed FOLIO instance has the same OCLC master number.
4. If holdings are better represented on another OCLC master number, then holdings must be deleted manually from the previous OCLC record and added to the new record manually.
5. If in doubt, suppress the instance record but do not delete the holdings or use the deletion statistical code.
B. To Mark an Instance Record to be deleted
1. Delete all Item and Holdings records associated with the BIB record.
2. Suppress the record from public and staff display.
3. Assign the statistical code "Delete: Delete - Delete"
Holdings Records
Delete all Item records associated with the Holdings record. If you cannot delete the items, you will not be able to delete the Holdings.
The steps for deleting a Holdings record are outlined here
Item Records
The steps for deleting an Item record are outlined here
Deleting COO Holdings from OCLC
1. General Considerations
Records cataloged in FOLIO have had holdings set in OCLC and our bibliographic (COO) holdings must be deleted from WorldCat whenever the FOLIO Instance record is deleted or suppressed from the OPAC. (Exception: When the OCLC master number in FOLIO is present in multiple FOLIO bibs then do not remove our holdings from OCLC.)
2. Deleting Holdings from WorldCat Manually
1. "Deleting" records from OCLC means removing Cornell's holdings symbol ("COO") from the master record, not removing the master record itself.
3. To remove our holdings manually from WorldCat:
Please check to make sure that OCLC number is not present on any other Voyager bib.
Log on to OCLC using an update account.
Display the bibliographic record from which you wish to delete Cornell's holdings.
From the Action menu, click Delete holdings or use [Shift] F8.
For more information, see Delete Holdings on the OCLC Help menu.