Conflicts overview

When two (or more) metadata records share identical metadata, we consider those records to be in conflict. Conflicts most often occur for two reasons: 

1. The metadata registered for content isn't sufficient to distinguish between two items. For example, items like "Book Reviews", "Letters" and "Errata" often share a single page and have no author
2. Two or more records have the same metadata (but different identifiers), suggesting that duplicate records have been created.

Records that are in conflict cause a lot of problems:

• For duplicate items, the appropriate, publisher-maintained record can't be identified.
• Query results are compromised. With many forms of querying, no match will be returned if we're not able to conclusively identify a single record to match the metadata in a query. 

Conflicts are flagged in the submission log when a conflicting record is registered. Conflicts are also recorded in our Conflict Report.  You can clear up any conflicts you've created by either supply correct complete metadata or by aliasing your records.