[IUG] Authority Control Manuals?

["Stephen McLaughlin" <sMcLaughlin at sfpl dot org>]

We are wrestling with the issue of authority control via vendor-supplied
authority record updates, and in order to get a jump-start on things, I
am hoping that some list members have procedure manuals that they would
be willing to share with us. We have automatic authority processing, and
are using Backstage as our vendor.

The problem that seems to me to be the biggest one is the updating of
existing records with changed headings after loading a new batch of
updated authority records from the vendor. If I understand things
correctly, any pre-existing records with the older form of a heading
would have to be passed through the control program by some sort of
global update (doesn't matter what) to get them queued up for overnight
authority processing. The problem I see with this is that we typically
get 5,000 - 8,000 headings updates a quarter. Does this mean running
thousands of global updates to get all the bib records in the processing
queue?

I'd be grateful for any advice on this, as well as access to actual
manuals, so that we could see the procedures other libraries have in
place for coping with their authority work.

Many thanks!

Steve McLaughlin
San Francisco Public Library
smclaughlin at sfpl dot org