Today I went to a talk about name authority records. If you don't have any idea what these are, Don't Panic (as the late great Douglas Adams would say.) and, I should add, Read No Further since they are only of relevence to cataloguers, who all know what they are. (Have a nice cup of tea instead, as the thankfully still alive Boy George might add.)
I watched my hand, entranced, as it transcribed three whole pages of notes on this obscure subject and I had to leave because my parking meter (I'd put a pound in) ran out after fifty minutes before the talk finished (It was given by one of Cambridge University Library's three name authority experts, Elizabeth Johnson).
'Backed by our supreme authority..': the creation of Name Authority records, Wednesday 27 July in Cambridge University Library.) The UL has one full time expert and two part time name authority experts. (Not that the rest of us are name authority amateurs, you understand.)
Elizabeth explained that the MARC name authority records that we all see on our systems are in a different format from that in which they are originally created: when she creates one she uses a system called Connexion which is an OCLC system linked to the Library of Congress. She showed us some examples of a record created in that format: the control fields looked completely alien to my (amateur?) eye but some of the fields were the same.
Elizabeth explained that all authority records, which are governed by the same rules as normal catalogue records, i.e. AACR2 using Library of Congress Rule Interpretations) had to include three elements: the authorised form of the name; the cross references to unauthorised forms or earlier or later forms and finally information about the sources that governed the choice of decision into these matters.
Hence a record might have the following fields:
110 2 _ Cats Protection League,
410 2_ CPL
410 2_ C.P.L.
510 2_ Cats Protection $w b
670 __A Passion for cats, 1987: $b t.p. (Cats Protection League) p.207(CPL)
670 __ Its website, 29 Mar. 2006$b(Cats Protection League changed to Cats Protection in 1998)
Elizabeth called the 510 and 670 fields 'false friends' (it's a long time since I heard that phrase used) since they looked like Marc fields but weren't.
A lot of the things she said about the need to class all the works of one author under the same name authority, and the need to establish one authorised name authority using rules, were basic Library School concepts, but the nuts of bolts of how this was done were interesting. Staff in participating libraries, such as ours, who encounter a book for which they are unable to find a match with a correct already established name authority, should put the book with a written request on a certain shelf, which is checked every day.
Sometimes the written request is just a scrawled note, and sometimes cataloguers erroneously submit the author's entire biographical details, as if mistaking Elizabeth for the writer of BBC obituaries described in Jon Ronson's latest book. What Elizabeth really likes to see, however, is the author's name, date of birth, (sometimes even to the month and day, which is useful in distinguishing people) place of education and place of current work. Usually when trying to distinguish between two people of similar names the first option is the date, and vernacular text descriptions are only used as a last resort. Most of this information is usually available somewhere on the book itself and unless there are two writers who are likely to be confused or the author is likely to ever write a book again (how can you predict this?) it is not worth trawling all over the place to find anything more. (What a pity. It is the trawling that we all signed up for when we decided we wanted to be information experts.)
Elizabeth creates a proposal record using the Connexion client. Some fields in a new record are populated with information retrieved from our Library management system, and she uses macros to save typing often repeated fields such as the names of certain authority sources. There is then a time lapse whilst the proposal records wait to be processed: Elizabeth can see which ones are waiting so she knows if she comes across one that someone else in another library has already proposed but which has not yet been adopted.
There are many libraries all over the world contribuiting to the process, which is called the Program for Co-operative Cataloguing Name Authority Co-operative Program (see http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/naco/nacopara.html )
A good time was had by all, thank you Elizabeth, and I hope I did not miss anything too vital whilst retrieving my car.
.
I watched my hand, entranced, as it transcribed three whole pages of notes on this obscure subject and I had to leave because my parking meter (I'd put a pound in) ran out after fifty minutes before the talk finished (It was given by one of Cambridge University Library's three name authority experts, Elizabeth Johnson).
'Backed by our supreme authority..': the creation of Name Authority records, Wednesday 27 July in Cambridge University Library.) The UL has one full time expert and two part time name authority experts. (Not that the rest of us are name authority amateurs, you understand.)
Elizabeth explained that the MARC name authority records that we all see on our systems are in a different format from that in which they are originally created: when she creates one she uses a system called Connexion which is an OCLC system linked to the Library of Congress. She showed us some examples of a record created in that format: the control fields looked completely alien to my (amateur?) eye but some of the fields were the same.
Elizabeth explained that all authority records, which are governed by the same rules as normal catalogue records, i.e. AACR2 using Library of Congress Rule Interpretations) had to include three elements: the authorised form of the name; the cross references to unauthorised forms or earlier or later forms and finally information about the sources that governed the choice of decision into these matters.
Hence a record might have the following fields:
110 2 _ Cats Protection League,
410 2_ CPL
410 2_ C.P.L.
510 2_ Cats Protection $w b
670 __A Passion for cats, 1987: $b t.p. (Cats Protection League) p.207(CPL)
670 __ Its website, 29 Mar. 2006$b(Cats Protection League changed to Cats Protection in 1998)
Elizabeth called the 510 and 670 fields 'false friends' (it's a long time since I heard that phrase used) since they looked like Marc fields but weren't.
A lot of the things she said about the need to class all the works of one author under the same name authority, and the need to establish one authorised name authority using rules, were basic Library School concepts, but the nuts of bolts of how this was done were interesting. Staff in participating libraries, such as ours, who encounter a book for which they are unable to find a match with a correct already established name authority, should put the book with a written request on a certain shelf, which is checked every day.
Sometimes the written request is just a scrawled note, and sometimes cataloguers erroneously submit the author's entire biographical details, as if mistaking Elizabeth for the writer of BBC obituaries described in Jon Ronson's latest book. What Elizabeth really likes to see, however, is the author's name, date of birth, (sometimes even to the month and day, which is useful in distinguishing people) place of education and place of current work. Usually when trying to distinguish between two people of similar names the first option is the date, and vernacular text descriptions are only used as a last resort. Most of this information is usually available somewhere on the book itself and unless there are two writers who are likely to be confused or the author is likely to ever write a book again (how can you predict this?) it is not worth trawling all over the place to find anything more. (What a pity. It is the trawling that we all signed up for when we decided we wanted to be information experts.)
Elizabeth creates a proposal record using the Connexion client. Some fields in a new record are populated with information retrieved from our Library management system, and she uses macros to save typing often repeated fields such as the names of certain authority sources. There is then a time lapse whilst the proposal records wait to be processed: Elizabeth can see which ones are waiting so she knows if she comes across one that someone else in another library has already proposed but which has not yet been adopted.
There are many libraries all over the world contribuiting to the process, which is called the Program for Co-operative Cataloguing Name Authority Co-operative Program (see http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/naco/nacopara.html )
A good time was had by all, thank you Elizabeth, and I hope I did not miss anything too vital whilst retrieving my car.
.
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