MARS Authority Control

An update from Polaris Integrated Library Systems – $z in the 010 tag

Polaris ILS versions prior to version 3.5 do not allow an incoming authority record to overlay if the Library of Congress authority record is replaced by an older version of that authority record.  When a newer record replaces an older record at the Library of Congress a “$z” with the old authority control number is added to the 010 of the new record.  This tells the library that there was an old version of this record and it has been replaced with this new version.  Prior to Polaris version 3.5, the Polaris system would not recognize the $z as the old record and the overlay would not take place.

According to Brad Rogers, Director of Implementation Services at Polaris, version 3.5 addresses this issue with a new dedupe rule added specifically for authority record importing.  Version 3.5 is slated for release by Polaris in just a few weeks.  The following Polaris importing setup screen reflects the change.

Screenshot showing new import rules allowed by the soon to be released latest Polaris update.

WHY IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO LOAD YOUR AUTHORITIES IN THE ORDER WE PROCESSED THEM

We have often had clients ask us in what order they should load their authorities, if they have several groups to load.  Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the situation where you haven’t loaded your last set of authority updates and now you’ve sent in new bibliographic records to be processed, or maybe your next scheduled update has arrived.  You find yourself looking at two or more batches of authorities and you wonder, “Does it really matter which goes first?”  Absolutely!  And here’s why:

    *  Say you had a scheduled authority update in December, but things went crazy busy and you haven’t had time to load those authorities yet.  Now it’s March and you have a large group of new bibliographic records that need processing, so you send them in.  Thinking you can save time by loading both the December updates and the bibliographic authorities at the same time, you wait for the new group to be returned.  But now … which to load first?  You should load the December updates first.  Example:

    *  You have a heading for Doe, John,$d1955-   and sometime last year LC updated that to Doe, John Joseph,$d1955- (and if we’re lucky, LC added the “old” heading as a 400 see-reference).  This changed authority would deliver with the December group you hadn’t loaded yet.

    *  Now you’ve sent in your bib records and in there is the heading for Doe, John,$d1955-  .  However, between December and today’s date LC decided to edit the record again and they put out a new authority with the new heading of: Doe, John J.,$d1955- (and still kept the original “old” heading of Doe, John,$d1955-  in a 400 see-reference tag).

    *  With the processed bibs you’d get back the very newest authority for Doe, John J.,$d1955-, which is what you’d want in your system.

    *  But if you decide to load the bibliographic records and associated authorities first and the December authority updates second, the middle version of Doe, John Joseph,$d1955-  (from the December updates) would overwrite the newest authority sent with the bibs, and you would be stuck with an older, not current LC version of this heading.

Which is why it’s always wisest to load oldest-to-newest, when you’re working with several projects at once.

One of the things we’re asked about occasionally is what the meaning of a $w (subfield w) is in See References in Authority Records (4XX tags). We hope this will help explain what the $w does.

The $w is a control subfield with up to four character positions. One-character alphabetic codes are used to describe special instructions that apply to the display of 4xx and 5xx fields. The definitions of the codes in subfield $w are dependent on the character position in which they occur. The coding of any character position mandates that each preceding character position contains a code or a fill character (|); succeeding character positions need not be used. For example, if $w/0 and $w/1 are not applicable but $w/2 is applicable, then $w/0 and $w/1 each contain code n (Not applicable) or a fill character (|). The n is used more often than the fill character.

We will use the following positions and codes to identify the references that our process adds to the LC authority records.

/2 – Earlier form of heading. We will use either of the following codes depending on which authority file (LC, MeSH, etc.) we found the former heading in.

• e – Earlier established form of heading (national authority file) – We will use this for headings found in the LC Authority File

• o – Earlier established form of heading (other authority file) – This will be used for headings found in other authority files.

/3 – Reference display. The following codes will be applicable in our process.

• a – Reference not displayed

• n – Not applicable – reference would display (If code n is applicable, subfield $w/3 need not be coded.)

Client libraries will be able to choose if they would like these added references to display or not and we will code the added reference accordingly.

$5 – Institution to which Field Applies. This subfield contains the MARC code of the institution or organization that has added a tracing, reference, or linking entry field to an authority file record. It is used for institution-specific information that may or may not apply to the universal use of the authority record.
We will identify these added references by adding a $5 with our institution code to them. i.e. $5UtOrBLW

So, a sample 4xx from a match made by our new process for a client that does NOT want the reference to display would look like:

4xx 0 $wnnea$aSome subject$xSubfield too$5UtOrBLW

It could look like this if they did want the reference to display:

4xx 0 $wnne$aSome subject$xSubfield too$5UtOrBLW

For more infomation on $w and $5, see the MARC21 Authority Format under the Tracings and References-General Information section at the following link:

• http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/adtracing.html

What do you do with open ended subject dates, when the Library of Congress has created authorities with closed dates and no open ended see references? This was the question we sought to answer over the last week.

Take for example, you have a bib record with the following heading:
650 _0 $aWorld politics$y1955-

The authority for this heading has the following authorized and see references:

sh 85148226
150 _0 $aWorld politics$y1955-1965

Although these records are related, in an automated process they wont be linked, and the ending date will not be supplied. We decided there had to be a better way to link these up, and the process wasn’t very difficult, in fact, we’ve been doing it for names forever!

The answer is in the hierarchy. If we allowed our hierarchy system to include the closing date for subjects, we could provide the open ended bib dates a form of hierarchy to match against.

In essence, our Authority record above would create 2 possible heading matches. They would be (after following our normalization routine):
$aWORLD POLITICS$1955-1965
$aWORLD POLITICS$1955-

Now your bib heading $aWorld politics$y1955- could match and update against the proper LC Authority record. When we started researching this, we discovered another caveat. In some cases there are 2 authorities, one with an open ended date and one with a closed date. Our conclusion is that it’s obviously better in this case to trust what the original cataloger selected and match the open ended authority, rather than the closed authority. An example of this would be the authorities:
sh 85007061
151_0$aArgentina$xPolitics and government$y1810-
sh 85007060
151_0$aArgentina$xPolitics and government$y1810-1817

In this case, our bib record heading of 651 _0 $aArgentina$xPolitics and government$y1810- would match the first Authority.

After figuring that out, we discovered a real surprise, headings that were exactly the same, but had different closing dates. For example, France — History — 1789 has the following Authorities:

sh 85051348
151_0$aFrance$xHistory$y1789-
sh 85051347
151_0$aFrance$xHistory$y1789-1900
sh 85051346
151_0$aFrance$xHistory$y1789-1815
sh 85051314
151_0$aFrance$xHistory$y1789-1793

Obviously there are different meanings for different time periods starting from 1789. Now, if the bib record had an open ended date, it would take the open ended authority. And, if the bib record had any of the closed dates, it would take the authority with the matching date.

Our focus here, has been making sure that open ended authorities take the best possible match, and if there are no open ended authorities, matching it to the correct closed date authority, without creating false positive results.

Bibliographic Record Update Service

Due to popular demand, Backstage Library Works is now offering a third ongoing service product that we call Bibliographic Record Update Service.  This service updates your bibliographic records during our Notification Service.

Over the years Backstage has offered two ongoing products for automated authority control.  For all of your new bibliographic records we provide a product called Current Cataloging.  Current Cataloging is designed to pick up where you left off with the original automated authority process.  We take all of your new bibliographic records and process them exactly like we processed your original bibliographic database.  With this process we return to you newly validated bibliographic records with updated authority headings that match the new and updated authority records we return to you.  We retain in your master authority file all new and updated authority records.

To complement our Current Catalog product Backstage offers Notification Services.  Notification Services matches your library’s master authority file against the National Databases on pre determined intervals to give you updated and new authority records that replace the old authority records on your database.

Both of these products together are a very efficient and cost beneficial way to maintain your authority database.  For most libraries this is sufficient.  However, with the Notification product it is left to the Library’s ILS system to reconcile new authorities delivered by Backstage with existing authority headings in their bibliographic records.  The process of importing and updating the Library’s authority records is straightforward.  Control numbers are matched up and the newly imported record overlay the old authority record.  However, for some ILS systems the updating of the authority heading is done by a string match on the 1XX or the 4XX of the authority record.  If neither are the same as the old bibliographic authority heading the record will not automatically reconcile.  Typically, this is done through reports but the effort to reconcile or to populate the authorized heading in the bibliographic record can be partially manual and can be time consuming depending on the ILS and the library.

How big of a job is this?  It really depends.  Up until the advent of the closed death date Backstage did not receive a call involving the amount of time you spent on reconciling new authority records to existing authority headings but that has changed.  Recently, we have noticed an interest in having this part of the ongoing authority process further automated.  As a result we have developed a complimentary service we call Bibliographic Record Update Service.

What we will do during our Bibliographic Record Update Service is maintain your bibliographic records along with your authority records.  With this service, Backstage will have a master bibliographic file as well as a master authority file for your library which we will maintain for you.  When Notification Services run on your database, our Bibliographic Record Update Service will also run.  Backstage will update or reconcile your bibliographic database as well as your authority file before we send records back to you.  We will deliver to you updated bibliographic records along with your updated and new authority files.

How does this help you?  The time spent reconciling your new and updated authority records to their associated bibliographic records will disappear.  Your library will simply need to upload updated bibliographic records along with new and updated authority records.  The process will be identical to what you do for Current Cataloging.

To maintain your bib file we will need any changed bibliographic records sent to Backstage prior to your Bibliographic Update service.

If you are interested in this new service please contact your sales representative or the MARS authority control team for more information.

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ALA Midwinter

Coming to Denver for ALA Midwinter meeting held in Denver? We’ll be there too!

Drop in and see us at booth 2244. We’d love to talk about our Digitization services, Cataloging, Retrospective conversion, or of course our Automated Authority Control, including a big new announcement about a new product we’ll be offering to help make your authority control even easier.