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Catalogue & Index Catalogue & Index Periodical of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Cataloguing & Indexing Group Issue 158 Editorial Contents 2 - 3 Retrospective Welcome to Issue 158 field (that could be used records and 25% of new authority control, of Catalogue & Index. for added entries for additions come from H K Williams This issue covers the series) redundant in outside the US. main topics of authority favour of using the 490 4 - 5 Series authority control and indexing. and 8XX fields, Colin Keeping with the control and MARC21, With the onslaught of Duncan, Inverclyde international flavour, Colin Duncan digital information, the Libraries discusses the Jennine Knight of the 6 - 9 Wikipedia and need for a controlled implication and includes University of West Indies cataloguing, semantic value of citing some information on highlights both the Kathleen Menzies people and places ever other library services strengths and weaknesses of pre and increases. This issue and how they will deal 10 - 11 Cooperative name post coordinate demonstrates how our with the change. authority data – the LC/ indexing. profession is, and can NACO Authority File, be, at the forefront. Kathleen Hugh Taylor Menzies, Researcher at Information 12 - 16 Pre and post professionals are the Centre for coordinate indexing: practitioners of a Digital strengths and weaknesses, tradition that spans Library Jennine Knight hundreds of years but is Research at Strathclyde 17 - 20 Spelling it all out: ever more prescient in this time and age. University FRAD, ISNI, RDA, VIAF: offers a automation and the future Helen Williams of the precise of authority control, London School of account of the many Alan Danskin of the Alan Danskin Economics and Political ways the online service British Library, Chair of Science gives us an Wikipedia uses the CIG, takes us through 21 - 23 Using WebDewey, insightful and practical practices of classification, some new and exciting Elly O’Brien guide in how to plan and categorisation and meta- developments in the process any data to organise its site world of authority control retrospective authority and allow varied access and the possible benefits plus... control project and how and navigation to its and challenges facing CIG authority control a balanced blend of legions of users. the information sector. seminar report human and Elly O‟Brien rounds off Hugh Taylor discusses technological this issue‟s articles with intervention can reap the importance of the an account of using globally renowned NACO Book reviews by CIG(S) great reward. OCLC‟s online members authority files, maintained WebDewey service. With the relatively recent by the Library of change in MARC21 by Congress. The file Penny Robertson, Editor MARBI to make the 440 exceeds 7 million Retrospective authority control H K Williams, London School of Economics and Political Science We began considering an authority copy of our catalogue to verify all on all our bibliographic records. control project at the LSE Library at name, subject and series headings Had we received records with the beginning of 2006. By this time against Library of Congress errors or corrupted data back into the loading of all retro-converted authority files using automated our catalogue it would have a records was complete and an processes. Bibliographic records hugely detrimental impact on our authority control group was would be amended to contain users. convened in order to assess user corrected headings. We would needs. Authority control receive corrected records and new Our checking did reveal a number procedures had varied somewhat authority files for loading as well as of queries which we submitted to over the years, primarily because reports of unmatched headings. Marcive. They provided a speedy each library management system This makes the process sound and detailed response, though this had offered different methods of simple, but we discovered various indicated that we had higher verifying headings. As well as the complexities along the way. expectations of the automated legacy of system migrations, process than was actually records had been imported from a Preparing to send the file to achievable. Fortunately the things variety of sources, and practices Marcive required some in-house we had hoped would be corrected had become particularly unclear planning. In particular we needed through automated processing following the migration from to be aware that any changes we appeared in accompanying error Unicorn to Voyager in 2004. Only made to our bibliographic records reports thus reassuring us that we the Library of Congress Subject while the file was with Marcive would still be able to clean the Headings file was purchased and would be overwritten when their catalogue to the degree we had so all new name authorities had to corrected data was supplied. We originally intended, albeit that it be authorised by manually therefore excluded order records would involve more staff time than importing the record from the from the data we sent so that we we anticipated. could continue to accession books Library of Congress. It became A few weeks later we received all apparent that some staff were during the project. These records were sent to Marcive for checking our corrected data and checking against existing entries to accompanying authority records. achieve consistency, others were after the initial data clean, as part of our ongoing services. We kept a Our IT department began loading importing Library of Congress files into our test server. records, while others were creating spreadsheet of existing bib records requiring changes during the Unfortunately the test server in-house authority records where suffered under the strain of so none was available. This meant course of the project so that they could be corrected afterwards. much data and we had to wait for there were a number of variant Ex Libris to carry out a regeneration headings in the catalogue. This built up into quite a considerable amount of work of the indexes before we could The decision was taken to because the project took longer proceed. After this it was outsource a retrospective clean-up than we had anticipated. unsurprising to find that loading one of all authority headings (subjects, million bibliographic records and series, and names) from a In May 2007 we exported 500,000 authority records into the company who could also provide a approximately one million live server was not without regular ongoing check of the bibliographic records to Marcive problems either. Having started the catalogue. At the same time, clear and two weeks later received a test process, IT estimated that loading authority control guidelines were file of 10,000 records for checking. the files and regenerating the established for staff to ensure as We checked one in ten of these, a keyword indexes would take 30 few inaccurate headings in the very time consuming process. We days because it was such a slow catalogue as possible. undertook such thorough checking process. One option was to take aware that we had exported our the live server offline, but downtime Tenders were assessed and the entire catalogue to Marcive, and is inconvenient to staff and project was awarded to Marcive. that the methods which had been students alike so this was not a Marcive would receive an electronic used on this sample would be used particularly practical option. The Catalogue & Index 2 other option was to re-index in straightforward to use as we report. We designated reports on large batches at the end of the file envisaged. We discovered corporate names, meeting names loading. This meant that for about eventually that this was due to a and series names as lower priority. a week there would be bug in the system meaning that we Once the temp had completed high inconsistencies in OPAC searches were unable to link new authority priority work we carried out a cost whereby the search facility used records to related bibliographic benefit analysis on the merits of the old indexes but records records. We had to wait for completing the outstanding reports. contained new data. This seemed Ex Libris to resolve this and in the Our sample testing suggested that the most practical way forward, meantime had to stockpile reports authority records would not be however, and 143 hours later all received from Marcive. Once this available for over 90% of the the data was loaded and the was resolved another bug meant remaining headings (those not re-indexing completed just before we had „orphaned headings‟ which already corrected by Marcive) so the end of 2007. would never clear from our list. measurable benefits would be few After more work from Ex Libris this in relation to the amount of work As 2008 began it was time to think was sorted out and we were able to required in terms of time and cost. about the ongoing processes work on the backlog of reports. Marcive would be providing for the The project could not have been Library. We send files of new In addition to these ongoing completed without the hard work of records to Marcive on a monthly services from Marcive we still those in the Bibliographic Services basis and they clean them and continue with our existing authority team who took part in testing data, send them back along with any guidelines for in-house work. our senior library assistant who necessary authority records. Authority work is far simpler with oversaw the work of the temp and Supplied with this is a report of the item in hand as it prevents contributed in many other ways, anything unrecognised or with further work in terms of unmatched and our IT team who persevered multiple matches and therefore or possible duplicate headings with the technological challenges.
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