1. FAST at the British Library
Thurstan Young on behalf of the FAST Review Group

2. British Library The National Library of the United Kingdom
legal deposit library
1,500 staff operating on three sites
120 cataloguers (full and part time)
Stockton on Tees
Boston Spa
London

3. Annual Intake* Financial Year 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 Monographs
184,921
180,020
178,15
Serials
78,317
76,034
71,913
E-Resources
39,605
27,923
66,058
Regulation introduced in April 2013 granted Library powers to claim non-print (including electronic) publications under Legal Deposit Act.
*Figures based on: British Library. Annual Report KPIs and Statistics 14-15

4. The purpose of the project
To seek efficiencies in the light of increased intake/reduced funding
To evaluate opportunities for extending coverage to resources currently excluded
To improve retrieval and linking in an online world

5. What we did Trialling FAST for current cataloguing
Experienced cataloguers
Selected European languages
Not Legal Deposit material
Retrospective conversion/Backlog clearance
FAST used for indexing by temporary staff
Assigning index terms in specialist repositories

6. Evaluation Feedback from participants in internal testing
Search interface
Assignment
Coverage

7. Benefits Efficiency FAST is quicker to apply
Barrier to use substantially reduced
Discovery
FAST is better adapted to current discovery tools
Limited browse does not exploit LCSH strings
Form/Genre terms fully implemented in FAST
Potential to extend subject coverage to un-indexed collections

8. Benefits Economy Free Web tool
Authority file available for download as XML
No Cataloger’s Desktop subscription required
Continuity with past practice and easy transition from current standards
FAST vocabulary terms same as LCSH and
LC/NACO Authority File
FAST has a full thesaural structure

9. Benefits Sustainability FAST is supported by OCLC
FAST assigned to records in World Cat that contain LCSH
Many libraries are already using FAST for particular projects
FAST is independent of encoding

10. Limitations and Risks Discovery and usage
Faceting breaks associations inherent in strings
Context of topical terms may be ambiguous
Some issues with coverage
Governance and sustainability
FAST is an OCLC research project
FAST is not yet a service

11. British Library Subject Standards Survey:
March-April 2016

12. Proposals
The British Library proposes to adopt FAST selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.
The British Library proposes to implement FAST as a replacement for LCSH in all current cataloguing, subject to mitigation of the risks identified in the background paper;  in particular, the question of sustainability.
The British Library proposes to implement Abridged DDC selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.

13. Questions What is your response to the proposed change?
How would you characterise the impact of the proposed change on your business?
How would you characterise the impact of the proposed change on your use of British Library metadata?
Very Negative
Very Positive
Neutral

14. Responses 60 responses received UK, USA, NZ, Europe
Public, academic, national and special libraries
The following charts illustrate the overall response to each proposal

15. 1. The British Library proposes to adopt FAST selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.
How would you characterise the impact of the proposed change:
generally
on your business
on your use of British Library metadata

16. 1. The British Library proposes to adopt FAST selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.
Fast headings are too general to be meaningful as index terms
We mostly use BNB records, which have LCSH.
British Library Metadata isn't our first choice because we are outside of the UK
I would like to know more about 'selectively'

17. 2. The British Library proposes to implement FAST as a replacement for LCSH in all current cataloguing.
How would you characterise the impact of the proposed change:
generally
on your business
on your use of British Library metadata

18. 2. The British Library proposes to implement FAST as a replacement for LCSH in all current cataloguing.
FAST subject headings can be so nebulous as to be meaningless
Very interesting prospect
Some concern about loss of precision
FAST is worthless
This library is heavily reliant on BNB records
Sustainability is our main concern

19. 3. The British Library proposes to implement Abridged DDC selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.
How would you characterise the impact of the proposed change:
generally
on your business
on your use of British Library metadata

20. 3. The British Library proposes to implement Abridged DDC selectively to extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content.
I would rather not have another edition of Dewey in the mix
We mostly use BNB records, which have full DDC.
Again pushing the work back to us.
The library does not make use of DDC
We would prefer to use other sources of metadata should this proposal be introduced.
…it might not be a terribly bad thing…

21. Future needs and plans Subject Standards Survey Response
Continuing support
An active role in development
Time and motion study
Retrievability study
No decisions before Autumn 2016

22. Thank you metadata@bl.uk caroline.kent@bl.uk janet.ashton@bl.uk