BCC2004/Auth/1

Authority Control in the Online Environment Interest Group (ACIG)
ALA Midwinter Conference, San Diego, CA, January 11, 2004

Reported by Marlena Frackowski, Chair, Authorities Subcommittee

The open meeting of the Authority Control in the Online Environment Interest Group consisted of six presentations and a business meeting.

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of ACIG (Qiang Jin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

What has ACIG contributed to the field of authority control? What has given ACIG its staying power for the last twenty years? Qiang based her presentation on results of the survey sent to the past chairs of ACIG who reflected on ACIG’s past and future, and issues, such as, communicating with vendors, learning from each other, monitoring emerging issues and creating continuity for the group. Current challenges for authority control and future focus will consider globalization of authority control and increased international cooperation, technological advancements for local systems, and, on a darker side; lack of cataloging training in library schools. ACIG’s major issues for the past 20 years? Transition to an online environment, integrated library systems, name authority control, and subject authority control. What were ACIG's major accomplishments? According to the past chairs, excitement about authority control, changes in LC policy, and more cooperative endeavors.

Current concerns and issues in music authority control: report from Authorities Subcommittee of Bibliographic Control Committee of Music Library Association (Marlena Frackowski)

Based on contributions from members of the Authorities Subcommittee of BCC of the Music Library Association, including Michelle Koth (Yale University), Terry Simpkins (Middlebury College), Charles Herrold (Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh), Mark Scharff and concerned others, this presentation offered a brief summary of accomplishments of the music library community with regard to authority control of music materials, and a litany of issues and concerns that yet have to be resolved. Among them: various problems involving local systems and music authority control, such as correct handling of music authority records, either in terms of sorting, or, of enabling cross references to work properly. Particularly spectacular mishaps result from incorrect flipping of headings based on see references in authority records. It was proposed that a joint MOUG-Authority Subcommittee task group be formed to investigate whether or not the Types Document could be used to assist automated authority vendors to control the situation to a certain degree. Some other issues presented included problems that some local systems have with the length of authority records, or enhancing the maintenance-related function and informational role of an authority file by including public notes from authority records. Also, the presenter briefly touched upon possible rule proposals for collective titles to be formulated in English and the examination of a controversy surrounding various composer-generated versions of a work.

Report of the SACO Task Force (Jimmie Lundgren, University of Florida)

Jimmie presented highlights of the report that was submitted in October 2003. The goals sought to identify institutional/participant needs to facilitate subject proposal contributions for inclusion in LCSH, to recommend parameters for membership in SACO, and to propose a list of responsibilities that accompany SACO membership, both from the PCC and the participant perspective. Other charges included outlining the training scenario, suggesting a mechanism for facilitating the contribution and distribution of subject proposals among subject trainers and training institutions for internal review, for final review by LC editorial staff, and for distribution of approved headings. Recommendations include: 1) establishing a formal SACO membership system, 2) developing a utility-based submission and distribution option for SACO members, 3) providing resources for training members and expediting proposals, 4) using the SACO discussion list for sharing questions and answers, and 5) providing for the updating of the SACO Participants’ Manual. More information is available at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/saco.html.

LC Updates (Ann Della Porta, Library of Congress)

Ann’s presentation included updates on Unicode planning and implementation at LC (LC's commitment to provide non-Roman data in bib. & auth. records, test conversion of LC database, errors correction, new non-filing indicator policy, displaying full MARC 21 character sets in the LC online catalog and LC authorities). She also reported on new guidelines for NACO libraries on how to report Bib File Maintenance (BFM), on draft revision to the Kurdish romanization table and revision of the Greek romanization table, as well as a proposed revision to LCRI 25.5B--uniform titles for moving images.

Report of the PCC Task Group on the Function of the Authority File (Manon Theroux, Yale University)

The final report, which was submitted in April 2003 and made available on the PCC website, contains discussion of background issues, current practices, options for change, and thirteen recommendations of the use of authority data to support the maintenance of headings in bibliographic records. Here they are in a nutshell: 1) clarify official name(s) of “The Authority File” (names to be suggested), 2) communicate importance of maintenance function of authority data to JSC (PCC approved), 3) communicate importance of maintenance function of authority data to FRANAR (PCC approved), 4) create appropriate policies for recording copy-specific data in 670 fields, 5) more aggressive promotion of prohibition against record recycling, 6) record formerly undifferentiated names in 667 note, 7) prohibit changing undifferentiated name records to unique records, 8) record cancelled duplicate heading in a note in “kept”record (if differs), 9) linking references for pre-AACR2 headings, 10) record former AACR2 headings that do not make valid linking references in a note, 11) retain “missing” Wade-Giles references in a note rather than delete, 12) record former LCSH headings that don’t make valid references in a note, and 13) record former subject headings now considered offensive in authority records. Recommendations (4-13), need to be reformulated and resubmitted for PCC approval. The full report is available at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/tgauthrpt_fin.pdf.

Report of the NISO Thesaurus Advisory Group (Stephen Hearn)

The report was very brief because almost no work had been done until recently. An update will be presented sometime in the future.

Business Meeting

The group discussed possible Interest Group status through ALCTS. There seemed to be confusion regarding a group status related to its double affiliation with LITA and ALCTS. Apparently, ACIG’s status according to LITA was that of a Discussion Group, whereas ALTCS regarded ACIG to be an Interest Group. To ward off confusion and to attain an undisputable IG status, the members will revise the group’s formal charge.

Qiang Jin conducted a discussion with regard to the ACIG anniversary meeting in Orlando. Among the invited open-session speakers who will explore emerging trends in authority control are Barbara Tillett, Arlene Taylor, Ed O’Neil, Lois Mai Chan, Stephen Hearn and John Attig.

Ana Clare Evans gave an update on the current status of the ACIG bibliography, intended as a compilation of all of the writings on authority control published during ACIG’s (but not necessarily by ACIG) twenty years of existence. A sample of abstracted entries will be ready in May 2004. The publication, however, will not be ready until the ALA summer meeting.

Return to the 2004 Documents Menu
Return to BCC Historical Documents Menu
Return to BCC Home Page

Last updated February 28, 2004