u/Beneficial_Past7505 — reddlx

I come from a records/data background (not a librarian), and I’m trying to understand cataloging workflows a bit better—especially where they might overlap with how we maintain other types of collections.

If you run into inconsistencies across records (like the same author appearing under different name forms, or mixed subject headings), how do you usually identify and isolate those records before you start fixing them?

Do you typically:

export and filter in Excel
use something like OpenRefine
run queries against your ILS
or just deal with issues as you encounter them

I’m especially curious about the step before cleanup—figuring out “these are the records I actually need to fix.”

Would really appreciate any insight into how this works in practice.