BCC98/Auth/1
LITA/ALCTS AUTHORITY CONTROL IN THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT INTEREST GROUP
Program/Meeting
ALA Midwinter meeting
New Orleans, LA, Jan. 11, 1998
Chair Mary Charles Lasater prefaced the panel discussion by remarking that
the choice of topic and speakers was an exercise of self-interest on her part. The panel
topic was "How authority vendor services are used in three local library
systems." Rather than a comparative exercise, it was a series of "how we do
it" talks.
Susan Bailey (Emory University) spoke about her library's experience with Library
Technologies, Inc., and particularly how changes in technology caused changes in the
services and processes of authority control. Emory's original intent was to have authority
processing at the point of data migration (to a Sirsi system), then to subscribe to a
notification service, with local staff importing the authority records. The current plan
involves more automation, and is centered in two products -- Authority Update Processing
and Authority Express. The former provides printed or ASCII-file reports of new and
changed headings 1-4 times a year. Authority Express involves FTP of new cataloging to LTI
on (for Emory) a weekly basis; within 24 hours, the records are returned with corrected
headings, a report of activity, files of new LC name and subject authority records for the
headings, and "provisional" records and unlinked headings. The latter categories
reflect Emory's choice to have some sort of authority record for every heading in the
database. This process has been carried on without manual intervention since the summer of
1995, though Bailey allowed that there was a backlog of processing.
Ann Kebabian (Colgate U.) described using Marcive in an Innovative Interfaces Inc. system. The themes of her presentation centered around how changes in the services that Marcive provided, along with changes in the III system's capabilities had affected authority processing, and creative "fixes" to problems that the system did not solve. As an example, when an updated version of an authority record enters the system, it overlays the existing record, thus deleting any local changes that are not in "protected" fields. To protect the information without resorting to protecting fields from overlay, all authority records that contain local edits have been coded so that they can be retrieved into a file that is downloaded to a floppy disk before batch loading of new and changed authority records. After the load, the file of locally-edited records is reloaded, and old and new versions of the records compared and reconciled.
Everett Allgood of New York University reported on a massive authority
processing project in progress. NYU runs a GEAC Advance system which checks all incoming
headings against an internal authority file; unmatched headings (based on very literal
match algorithm) generate
skeletal authority records, many of which actually stand for the same person or work. In
the spring of 1997, NYU sent a file of 1.3 million authority records via FTP to WLN for
processing against the LC and WLN authority files. NYU chose to send the authority records
rather than the bibliographic records so as not to require shutdown of cataloging activity
during the processing period (which seems a wise decision). The processing included the
use of "pseudo"-authority records in the WLN files that could detect and correct
such things as obsolete subdivisions, common typos ("Untied States"), and the
like. The first files of LC and "de-duped" local authority records have been
returned, but not loaded yet. The hope is that in most cases, the new records will overlay
existing ones, and then generate corrections in bib-record headings, but a certain amount
of manual review is inevitable. The staff will be busy in the next few months devising a
workflow for this process -- in light of the size of files involved, almost certainly a
mammoth undertaking.
Maureen Finn (OCLC) gave a brief update on the implications of OCLC's recent purchase of
the authority-processing service of Blackwell's North America. To questions as to why OCLC
had been vague with some customers as to what services would be retained, she responded
that OCLC had had to re-write Blackwell's programs from assembler language, and then
determined what services could be carried over successfully. Ten libraries have served as
test sites, and production, including new accounts, are expected to be available in late
January.
Andrew MacEwan (British Library) spoke on his library's experiences with authority control
for form headings for fiction. In particular, he explained the Library's practices in
linking Library of Congress Subject Headings for form to corresponding headings from the
Guidelines on subject access to individual works of fiction, drama, etc. (gsadf). The
library uses the 750/755 fields in authority records to connect terms from the two
thesauri, but do not make topic-to-form references. They have modified GSADF by adding
different references and augmenting scope notes, in some cases by borrowing from LCSH.
Ann Della Porta (Library of Congress) announced authority-related news
from LC. There will be SACO (subject authority record proposals) training sessions at ALA
Annual in Washington. NACO has expanded internationally by adding the libraries of the
University of Cambridge and the National Library of Scotland as contributors. PCC (Program
for Cooperative Cataloging) has set a goal for annual contributions of 200,000 NACO
records by 2002. Ann explained procedures surrounding the delay in LC's implementation of
the change to the USMARC Authorities Format that makes first indicator "2"
obsolete (current use is for compound surnames), and what implications this has for LC
cataloging and for NACO activities. She reported briefly on the Toronto conference on the
principles and future development of AACR. She also did a "NACO tutorial" on the
principles of normalization that apply to NACO authority records and which determine
whether two headings that differ only in the presence of diacritics, hyphens, or other
punctuation are to be treated as duplicate or unique.
The short business meeting that followed the program was principally a preview of the
program for Annual, on "Metadata and Authority Control." Three speakers are
lined up -- Sherry Vellucci to provide an overview, David Austin to address issues related
to use of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, and Gerry McKiernan to look at metadata and
the World Wide Web. A fourth speaker is being sought, preferably someone who is involved
in developing a product. The MLA liaison gave his report.
Submitted by Mark Scharff
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