RE: Headings Report for Non-Unique 4xx

["Barton, Barbara" <Barbara dot Barton at jud dot ca dot gov>]

Many thanks to Cliff and Ryan and Jeffrey for their clarifications and
practical procedures.  I will leave those nice authority records with
their useful 4xxs alone.  I think it's interesting that I got
out-of-date advice from the Help Desk, but Cliff's bit of history may
explain why.  
Barbara

-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Cliff Glaviano
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 1:24 PM
To: IUG INNOPAC List
Subject: Re: Headings Report for Non-Unique 4xx

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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