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July 2011

7 participants
2 discussions

Alexander Street, Chadwyk
by Ted Waller 22 Jul '11

22 Jul '11

We just had authority work done on 3 years of bib records, and Alexander Street Press and Chadwyck are responsible for 90% of our cleanup work. We had downloaded several collections of bib records from these two (e.g., Classical Music Library, out of copyright poetry collections) and the headings were atrocious. This is not a problem originating from Backstage, of course. I don't know where these publishers got their marc records, but they must be exceedingly old. Ted Waller Carlyle Campbell Library Meredith College 919 760 8381

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Free Floater Subdivision Validation (18X)
by Nate Cothran 11 Jul '11

11 Jul '11

Greetings everyone, Earlier this year (2011), our Authority Control team put our heads together to see whether there was a way to provide validation using the free-floating subdivision records. The Policy & Standards Division over at Library of Congress had mentioned previously that one of their goals was to provide links between the 15X authority records and the 18X authority records. In the 15X authorities, the 072 $a would reflect the Subject Headings Manual <http://www.loc.gov/cds/PDFdownloads/shm/index.html> (SHM) H reference codes with a corresponding link found in the 073 $a of the 18X authorities. So whenever an 072 was found in a 15X authority, it would link up with corresponding 073 fields in various 18X authorities. Why would this be something worth exploring in the first place? When a heading is attempting to find a match against Library of Congress (LC) authority records, typically only portions of the heading matches. As there are many different instances of headings with variable free-floating subdivisions, usually only the main part of the heading ($a) matches an existing LC authority. As any of our clients that have perused the R06-Partially Matched Headings Report <http://ac.bslw.com/community/wiki/index.php5/Profile_Guide_Chapter_5#MARS_2 .0_Bib_Reports_List> can attest to, there are a vast number of headings listed where only the $a has been authorized, leaving many free-floating subdivisions just sitting there in the report. For instance, the heading 600 10 $a Smith, John might have different subdivisions following the main heading: 600 10 $a Smith, John $v Blogs 600 10 $a Smith, John $v By-laws 600 10 $a Smith, John $v Catalogs LC, however, has only authorized the main heading: n 86851637 100 1_ $a Smith, John So this heading, as well as many others like it, end up on our partially matched headings report. We began thinking: what if there was a way we could provide validation within the actual reports for these partially matched headings? Would our clients find this useful as they navigate through the reports, essentially being able to-at a glance-dismiss or include headings that would normally take them many more hours to check manually? What if our solution is not quite perfect at first, is it still worth exploring and refining later? Out of the 3,603 authorities that comprise the free-floating subdivision records (18X), there are 3,600 (99.9%) which contain an SHM ID in the 073 $a. For example, H1095 is the SHM ID that contains valid subdivisions for use with 600 fields in bib records. H1095 examples include: blogs, by-laws, and catalogs. We considered this a great start. On June 20, 2011, we looked at all 8,575,658 authorities in our LC master file (which LC updates weekly). We wanted to discover how many existing authorities had an 072 field that we could utilize in conjunction with the free-floating subdivision record's 073 field. We found one record that has an 072 field (0.0000001%): sh2010014519 072 $a H1149 150 $a Cyclohexylamine That put a damper on our ambitions, but didn't derail us. While it was obvious we could no longer mine the links between 15X and 18X authorities via 072/073 fields, we realized we still were able to exploit the 18X authorities. Each 18X authority starts with either $x or $v followed by the valid subdivision: sh2003007727 073 $a H1095 $z lcsh 073 $a H1100 073 $a H1103 073 $a H1110 185 $v Blogs 485 $v Weblogs . H1095 is a general catch-all list of subdivisions valid for use on all 6XX fields . H1100 is valid for Classes of persons on 600 fields . H1103 is valid for Ethnic groups on 650 fields . H1110 is valid for Names of persons on 600 fields We instructed our system to first check the 073 $a SHM ID. Based on the ID found, our system would then check specific 6XX fields (or all, depending on the SHM ID) against the list of subdivisions that are determined to be valid for that SHM ID. Our earlier example: 600 10 $a Smith, John $v Blogs The authority n 86851637 will be returned. With the validation on 18X authorities in place, it would also find the $v Blogs free-floating subdivision authority sh20030007727, since H1095, H1100, and H1110 are all valid to be used in 600 fields. We have modified our existing R06 report (which is part of our standard distribution if requested) to color-code valid, invalid, and partially valid free-floating subdivisions: . Valid - valid subdivisions will be green and underlined . Invalid - invalid subdivisions will be red and underlined . Partially valid - partially valid subdivisions will be orange and underlined. An example would be $x Blogs where the valid subdivision is actually $v Blogs For now, these are our default actions: . Validate free-floating subdivisions against the 18X authorities only in the partially matched headings report . Do not deliver matching validation authorities (unless requested) . Do not update client's master authority file by adding validation authorities (unless requested) This report should now be included (upon request if you're not already receiving it) with the validation and able to be viewed with your next Current Cataloging <http://ac.bslw.com/community/wiki/index.php5/Profile_Guide_Chapter_6#Curren t_Cataloging_Service> service. We also altered our CSS files in the report so that if you print out R06, the validation settings will be printed differently than how they are displayed onscreen-since color-coded headings in black & white all become varying (indecipherable) shades of gray. We know further refinement will be needed, but we think this is a good start and hope you find it useful. As always, we welcome any feedback you may have and, as a team, we will attempt to answer your questions concerning this enhancement. If you've made it this far, we might as well end with a table showing the SHM ID codes, a general description for those IDs, as well as the bib fields we have set for validation: H H1095 free floating subdivisions 6xx H1155 legislative bodies 610 H H1100 classes of persons 600 H1155.2 groups of literary authors 650 H H1103 ethnic groups 650 H1155.6 literary works entered under author 600 H H1105 corporate bodies 610 H1155.8 literary works entered under title 630 H H1110 names of persons 600 H1156 literatures 650 H H1120 names of families 600 3x H1158 materials 650 H H1140 geographic names 651 H1159 military services 650 H H1145.5 bodies of water 651 H1160 musical compositions 630 H H1147 animals 650 H1161 musical instruments 650 H H1148 art 650 H1164 organs and regions of the body 650 H H1149 chemicals 650 H1180 plants and crops 650 H H1149.5 colonies 651 H1185 religions 650 H H1150 diseases 650 H1186 religious and monastic orders 610 H H1151 education institutions 610 H1187 christian denominations 610 H H1151.5 types of educational institutions 650 H1188 sacred works 630 H H1153 industries 650 H1195 land vehicles 650 H H1154 languages 650 H1200 wars 650 H H1154.5 legal topics 650 Nate Cothran - nate(a)bslw.com <mailto:nate@bslw.com?subject=Automation%20Services%20-%20Query> Product Manager, Automation Backstage Library Works 533 E 1860 S, Provo UT 84606 (p) 801.342.5697 - (f) 801.356.8220 www.ac.bslw.com/community/blog <http://ac.bslw.com/community/blog/>

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