Re: Headings Report for Non-Unique 4xx

[Cliff Glaviano <jglavia at bgnet dot bgsu dot edu>]

Hi, comments interspersed ...

At 02:54 PM 6/17/2005, you wrote:
> OK, authority work experts, I need your help.  How do I use the Headings
> Report for Non-Unique 4xxs, which I check after loading Authority
> records from our vendor and letting the Automatic Authority Control run
> overnight? I have conflicting instructions about what to do about the
> report and what records need to be changed.  Bibs or Authorities? or
> some of each? or none?

Nothing needs changed:  this is telling you that some of your authority 
4XX's are pointing at different headings.  For example, author 4XX IAM in 
our Innopac International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 
International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, and Irish 
Academy of Management nothing to change ...  if your 4XX points to two of 
the same heading, it may be the case that you have a duplicate authority 
records ... we have several folks offloading these locally and it happens, 
so I'd imagine your authority vendor may occasionally ship dup authority 
records ...

> I looked at the III presentation "Using the Headings Reports," (a very
> helpful document), which says to review and edit the Bib records that
> contain the unauthorized heading and choose one of the authorized ones,
> which makes sense, especially for their subject example. However, the
> report lists authority records not bibs, so you have to hunt for them,
> and the presentation assumes that you've got bib records with the
> unauthorized headings.

In general 4xx's are unauthorized headings and you should not find them in 
bib records.  I doubt your vendor supplies you with a new full set of 
authority records with each update, so any existing headings in the form of 
a 4XX won't be flipped to an authorized form unless it is from a new 
authority record.  They also won't show up as invalid unless they hit 
against a 4XX in an existing record (i.e. when you add a bib record to your 
system, a heading in the bib record that exactly matches a 4XX already in 
your system will report out as unauthorized)

> Typically in our system that hasn't been the case
> -  the headings are in the 2 authority records alright, but not in many
> bib records.  And if they were, wouldn't they show up on the Invalid
> Headings Report anyway?  The presentation doesn't say anything about
> changing Authority records (and neither does the Manual).
>
> When I talked to a tech at III, however, he said that the Authority
> records need to be changed because having the same 4xx in 2 records
> confuses the system and affects indexing and display in the Web OPAC and
> Millennium (if I understood him correctly). I haven't noticed any
> problems like loops, but maybe there's something I'm not seeing. I don't
> want to screw up the system, but I'm reluctant to change perfectly good
> LC authority records unnecessarily and lose useful information.

Innovative discouraged duplicate indexes/indexing in the past, but the 
advice you were given is incorrect ...   Your patrons looking for IAM need 
to know if you have two different names or subjects in use in your catalog 
that may have relevance to their need ...  Besides that, Innopacs are much 
smarter than they were in the early 1990's and they can handle duplicate 
index entries (redirects) with ease ...


> It's not
> that uncommon to have non-unique 4xxs. Think of an organization changing
> its name but keeping its abbreviation, or an ambiguous subject like
> beauty- aesthetics or personal grooming?  I can see it would be a more
> of a conflict for titles and names, especially personal names.
>
>
> To sum up, it looks to me like Names and Titles probably require action
> on Authority records, but the Subjects probably don't.  Just make sure
> that the bib records do not have the unauthorized headings and change
> them if they do.  Have I got it right, or am I missing something with
> appalling consequences?

I think you are right on changing out the unauthorized headings from the 
bib records, but I'd disagree on removing dup 4XX's in authority 
records.  Patrons looking for Romeo and Juliet really need to know how many 
different manifestations of that (Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Berlioz, etc.) 
you have in your collection, and see the title they can click on in webpac 
to get to the work(s).  Locally, we are having some reindexing going on and 
our patrons can no longer see the 4XX from things likeTom Sawyer to 
Adventures of Tom Sawyer ... also any 4XX's from new authority records are 
not showing in the public catalog for some (not all) of new corporate 
authority records ... and what's appalling is having to wait a couple of 
weeks for reindexing (off hours) to be complete so we can tell if we need 
something fixed ... we're doing a beta version of an upcoming release to 
gain functionality in Electronic Resource Management ... so it's hard to 
tell if it's the release or the reindexing ...

Sorry for the rant.  Hope this helps ...

TNX

Cliff

Cliff Glaviano, Univ Libes, Bowling Green State University (Ohio)

> Thanks
>
> Barbara M. Barton
> Coordinator, Collection Management Services
> California Judicial Center Library
> 455 Golden Gate Ave., Rm.4617
> San Francisco, CA  94102-7013
> phone: (415) 865-7173
> fax: (415) 865-7187
>
>
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