Re: Need help with automated authorities processing

[Rosemary Fallon <R.Fallon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Judith,

We have not gone on to Release 2000 yet, but we do have AACP, so I'll make
a few comments below your points in the hope of shedding some light on what
you've observed.


At 04:29 PM 1/10/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi everyone!
>
>We got automated authorities processing just a couple of weeks ago, and
>then loaded release 2000 last Friday. I'm seeing some heading reports
>that strike me a a little weird, but don't have enough experience with
>the feature to know if this is a release 2000 bug, or is simply the way
>I should expect the feautre to work. Please help me figure out if these
>problems are something I should report:
>
>1) Nearly matches: In 5 bib records, our (correct) 830 Crime & society
>(Boulder, Colo.) was reported as invalid because, when the system read
>the authority record, it normalized "&" to "and", drawing the conclusion
>that the records were wrong. Does this always happen?

I don't think I've seen that particular problem before, though (by the way)
it does seem to me a problem that Innopac normalizes "&" to "and" when it
could be "et", "e", etc. depending on the language of the description.


>2) Invalid headings: In 2 bib records, the headings "United Nations" and
>"United States" were reported as invalid, referring to (in the former
>case) the subject authority record "International trusteeships" and (in
>the 2nd case) "American Convention on Human Rights 1969." In these
>authority records, United Nations or United States appears as subfield a
>in a 410 field. I'm not sure why the report is picking this up.

This has always been a problem in the Headings reports, regardless of
whether you have AACP or not.  You are right that it is the 410 in the
authority record that leads to this incorrect report.  I think the problem
is that in 4xx fields like this the x or k subfield is not indexed, so the
system just reads the 4xx as "United Nations" or "United States" and
reports that as an invalid bib. record heading:

150   0 International trusteeships
410  20 United Nations|xInternational trusteeships

130   0 American Convention on Human Rights|d(1969)
410  10 United States.|kTreaties, etc.|gNov. 22, 1969

Here are three similar cases I see quite often.  You can imagine how
frequently X10 headings beginning "Australia" occur in our records, as
"United States" must for you!  I'm not sure that every single one is
reported as invalid, however in the example below the bib. record contained
a 110 "Australia" + a 240 for an Act.  I just ignore these particular
headings whenever I see them in the Invalid headings report:

  01 > FIELD:     110 10|aAustralia.
       INDEXED AS AUTHOR: australia
       MESSAGE:  INVALID HEADING 
       CORRECT HEADING IS: international tin agreement 1971
       FROM: b22743625 Australia. Native Title Act 1993
       CATALOG DATE: 090888
       FUNCTION: oc AT TERM: 300 INITIALS: rgf ON: Tue 30 Jun 1998 16:08:00

  02 > FIELD:     710 2 |aBritish Library
       INDEXED AS AUTHOR: british library
       MESSAGE:  INVALID HEADING 
       CORRECT HEADING IS: ap huw manuscript
       FROM: b22345140 Matthews, Graham, 1953 Disaster management in British
       libraries : project report with guidelines for library managers / Graham
       Matthews and Paul Eden.
       FUNCTION: ee AT TERM: 300 INITIALS: acc ON: Fri 19 Jun 1998 14:18:44

  01 > FIELD:     700 0 |aAesop.
       INDEXED AS AUTHOR: aesop
       MESSAGE:  INVALID HEADING 
       CORRECT HEADING IS: association of european schools of planning
       FROM: b22812489  Aesop's fables. Latin.
       CATALOG DATE: 160798
       FUNCTION: oc AT TERM: 22 INITIALS:  ON: Thu 16 Jul 1998 08:50:42


>3) Non-unique 4XX: "Judiciary" was reported as a non-unique 4xx (which
>in fact it is), but we have no bib records with Judiciary as a subject
>heading. Is this a typical report?

This is an extremely annoying aspect of the AACP.  It reports on non-unique
4xx fields regardless of whether that form is used in any bib. record.  It
seems to me this part of the report would *only* be useful if it reported
on bib. records that contained the 4xx data as a heading (and better still
if it offered them for change).  As it is, I do not see any point in
looking at this section.  No-one has time to search every heading listed on
the off-chance that it might have been used in a bib. record.
   

>Many thanks in advance to you authority gurus out there!
>
>Judy
>-- 
>Judith A. Vaughan-Sterling
>Principal Catalog Librarian			Voice:  (215) 898-7299
>Biddle Law Library				Internet:  jvaughan@xxxxxxxxxx
>3460 Chestnut Street				Fax:  (215) 898-6619
>Philadelphia, PA  19104-3406



Rosemary Fallon                     
Authority Control 
Cataloguing Department               e-mail: r.fallon@xxxxxxxxxx
University of Sydney Library          telephone: (02) 9351 5589
Fisher Library  F03
University of Sydney  2006  
AUSTRALIA