1. Vended Authority Control --Procedures and issues

2. 2 PRESENTERS Lihong Zhu Head, Bibliographic Control Dept. Washington State University Libraries P.O. Box 645610, Pullman, WA 99164-5610 E-mail: lzhu2@wsu.edulzhu2@wsu.edu Marilyn Von Seggern U.S. Government Information/Electronic Resources Librarian Washington State University Libraries P.O. Box 645610, Pullman, WA 99164-5610 E-mail: m_vonseggern@wsu.edum_vonseggern@wsu.edu

3. 3 Presented as a poster session at the 2004 American Library Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, Fla., June 2004.

4. 4 ABSTRACT When a library embarks on vended authority control, it should have procedures in place to cover the following three facets: 1. Bring the existing bibliographic database up to current authority standards and build a new authority database; 2. Bring the newly added bibliographic records up to current authority standards; 3. Keep the newly created authority database up-to-date as external authority structure evolves, and, at the same time, keep the existing bibliographic records up to current authority standards. This poster session presents possible procedures and workflow to cover the above three facets of vended authority control, and discusses special issues that need to be paid attention to in the process.

5. 5 INTRODUCTION

6. 6 What is authority control? Authority control is a set of procedures to update the authority file and to maintain the consistency in the form of the headings used in bibliographic records by verifying the headings in newly added items against the authority file.

7. 7 Why do we need authority control? Under authority control, various forms of the same name, subject, and title will be brought together under one authorized heading, and thus improving the precision of information retrieval. Authority records provide see and see also references that serve as pointers to authorized forms of headings in library online catalogs.

8. 8 What MARC fields should be under authority control? 100, 110, 111, 130 240 400, 410, 411, 440 600, 610, 611, 630, 650, 651 700, 710, 711, 730 800, 810, 811, 830

9. 9 What is vended authority control? Contracting to external companies or organizations the authority control workload that would otherwise be performed by library employees

10. 10 What can vended authority control do for your library? Examine all headings that need to be under authority control in your bibliographic database, compare them to the national authority files selected by your library, verify and/or update all headings to current authorized forms Supply a complete and accurate set of authority records to set up your local authority database Keep your local authority database up-to-date Make authority control part of your normal workflow Update bibliographic records to current MARC 21 standards

11. 11 REQUIRED PRELIMINARY RESEARCH

12. 12 How does your library system handle authority control? Does your library system have an automatic authority processing function that can search for a matching bibliographic heading for each see from heading (MARC 4xx) in an authority record and update the bibliographic heading based on the valid form (MARC 1xx) in an authority record? This function is crucial in the procedures of vended authority control. If your library system does not have this function, you need to get it for your routine authority control.

13. 13 How does the automatic authority processing function work in your local system? Can it modify authority records? Can it deal with 5xx inconsistencies in authority records? If an authority record is used in both the name and subject indexes, will it be necessary to process the two authority records separately to change all the relevant bibliographic headings? Can it do automatic update when processing 180, 181, 182, 185? Can it update subfield z? How does it handle subfields that do not fall under authority control? How does it handle non-unique 4xx?

14. 14 What reports can your library system generate to support authority control?  Used for the first time  Invalid headings  Blind references  Duplicate authority records  Bibliographic updates  Duplicate numbers and other errors  NON-unique 4XXs  Cross-thesaurus matches  Near matches  Busy matches

15. 15 Do those reports cover the following instances? 5XX inconsistencies Free-floaters Subfield z Obsolete headings in wrong MARC tags

16. 16 What kind of bib records do you want to send out for authority control? Under normal circumstances, you will include only full bib records for authority control; it will be a waste of money to send out brief bib records like circ-on-the- fly records and on-order records since those records will be replaced later by full bibs.

17. 17 Do you need separate output and load tables for authority control? Most of the time, you do need to set up separate output and load tables for authority control since your regular output and load tables will not meet the special requirements. You need to decide what overlay parameters should be protected in load tables too.

18. 18 VENDED AUHORITY CONTROL PROFILE

19. 19 What questions need to be answered? What data exchange format do you prefer? File transfer protocol (FTP) is the most common data exchange format though there are a lot of other choices your authority control vendor can accept.

20. 20 What questions need to be answered? How do you want your authority control vendor to distribute authority files? This will largely depend on the structure of your local authority database. If your local authority records are stored in two files (name and subject), your vendor should distribute authority records in two files (name and subject).

21. 21 What questions need to be answered? Do you want to subscribe to authority notification service? Authority notification service is an important tool to keep your authority database up-to-date by notifying you on a regular basis what authority records in your local authority database need to be replaced or deleted and providing you new authority records.

22. 22 What questions need to be answered? Do you want to subscribe to current cataloging service? Current cataloging service is an important tool to keep your newly added bibs up-to- current authority standards.

23. 23 What questions need to be answered? What reports do you want to order from your authority control vendor? What reports to order depends on your authority control profile and procedures. Some reports are helpful for catching headings that might need change but can not be easily decided by vendor’s authority control software.

24. 24 MAIN FACETS OF AUTHORITY CONTROL

25. 25 Facet I Brings up the existing database to current authority standards. This can be accomplished by sending the whole bib database to your vendor for processing. The vendor will process it according to the authority control profile you have chosen and return it to you updated to current authority standards. Together with the returned bib database, you will also get files of up- to-date authority records. The updated bib database and the files of authority records will be loaded into your local system. If you have an old authority database, it should be removed before the loading of new authority files.

26. 26 Facet II Brings up the records added to the database after the initial authority wash to current authority standards. This facet will be an ongoing process that can be achieved by using your vendor’s current cataloging service. In addition, various reports from your local system can be very helpful too.

27. 27 Facet III Updates the existing database, and the authority structure existing within the local system, as the external authority structure changes. This facet is an ongoing process too. This facet can be done by using your vendor’s authority notification service, and your local system’s automatic authority control processing software, global update function, and reports.

28. 28 PROCEDURES

29. 29 Routine procedures need to be set up to cover the following facets Monitoring new headings Maintaining an up- to- date local authority file Updating existing bibliographic records in local systems

30. 30 How to monitor new headings? Review of new heading reports generated by your local system Subscribe to vendor’s current cataloging service

31. 31 How to maintain an up-to-date local authority file? Subscribe to vendor’s authority notification service which provides updated and new authority records for you to load into your local authority database. It also provides a list of obsolete authority records for you to delete from your local authority database. Authority reports generated by your local system can be very helpful.

32. 32 How to Update existing bibliographic records in local systems? When you load the files of authority records you receive from your vendor into your local library system, existing bibs can be updated through your local automatic authority processing function. Based on the list of deleted authority records you get from vendor’s authority notification service, you can locate obsolete headings in bibs and update them manually or though your local global update function.

33. 33 Special procedures might be needed to cover the following aspects Inform your vendor of the changes you have made to your local authority database so that your vendor has an up-to-date knowledge of your local authority database Update split headings Update free-floaters Update subfield z

34. 34 ISSUES

35. 35 Output and export records Have all the bib records sent to your vendor been returned and reloaded? Have all authority records sent from your vendor been loaded? Do the local output and export load tables meet the special requirements of authority control?

36. 36 Blind references Can blind references be suppressed in your local OPAC? Should we leave blind references that appear as 5XXs in other authority records in the local authority database?

37. 37 Gap time Gap time begins when bib records are sent to your vendor for authority control and it ends when bib records are returned and loaded into the local system. Special gap time policy might be needed since changes made to bibs during the gap time could be wiped out by reloaded records unless your load tables have been set up to prevent this from happening.

38. 38 Staffing A designated cataloging librarian should oversee the whole process of authority control and deal with reports from the vendor.