RE: Automatic Authority Control

["Whittenberger, Lynn" <lynn.whittenberger@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jamen-
 
We have been using Automatic Authority Control (AAC) for a little while now (we're still using the text-based version of III).  In my experience, the AAC works like this:
 
1. authority record is downloaded into your local system
2. overnight (i *think* this is the default setting for when AAC will run & don't know if the time can be changed, check with III), the AAC process will run.  
3. If a bib record in your system uses a heading that matches a 4XX in an authority record, the AAC will flip the incorrect heading to the correct heading (the 1xx entry in the authority record).
4. The next morning, you can see a list of changed headings in the headings report (The AAC will only correct 6XX fields, not series). 
 
I have found this to be a really useful feature, especially when Library of Congress has made some big heading changes ("aged" to "older persons" recently). I just downloaded the new authority records, and let the system do the rest - AAC sucessfully flipped over 10000 headings to the correct heading, with only a handful of headings I had to clean up manually.
You will have to go back and check your indexes after the AAC has run, it will not fix headings if they are coded incorrectly (I had some instances where the heading was entered as a 690 instead of a 650, and other instances where an incorrect subfield had been entered ($y instead of $x for instance)).
It is also important to remember that AAC can only fix headings that match exactly a 4xx field in the authority record, so if there are typos, etc. in the incorrect heading or if an incorrect heading does not appear as a 4xx in the authority record, AAC will not flip the heading.
 
The AAC does not generate authority records for headings that do not have a matching authority record in the system.
As far as I have observed, AAC will not correct incoming bib records (someone correct me if I'm wrong!), AAC functions as a result of loading an authority record. 
When new bib records are loaded, and the record has an incorrect heading for which you *already* have the authority record in your system, the incorrect bib record heading will come up on the headings report under "invalid headings used".
 
Depending on the size of your database, you might want to break up the authority record loads into smaller "chunks" to load daily or even weekly, so you can keep up with the headings reports it will generate.
 
If you have any other questions about AAC, feel free to contact me.
 
Good luck!
 
Lynn W.
Lynn Whittenberger
Cataloging / Database Management
Raynor/Memorial Library
Marquette University
ph: 414.288.3406
e-mail: lynn.whittenberger@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lynn.whittenberger@xxxxxxxxxx> 
 
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're using Millennium 2002 Phase 3:

Have a question for all of you about automatic authority control. Currently, we do not have any authority records in our database. As a result, we have not used the Automatic Authority Control functionality we have available. However, we're considering getting authority records this summer for our current database. My question is (and this may sound very elementary), How does the "Automatic Authority Control" function work? In other words, once we get our initial load of authority records for what we have currently, what will this function allow us to do for incoming bib records? Will it generate authority records automatically (like our previous system did)? If you using this function, what have been your experiences? Positive/Negative? What should we look out for when start loading authority records? Any advice you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!



--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---