Please reply to Barbara Tillett, of the Task Group on Authorities
<lctga@ucsd.edu>; not to SERIALST. Thanks. --ed.
p.s. Be advised that this message is being cross-posted to several
lists ... with the usual apologies for duplication.
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
TO: The Library and Archival Community
FROM: The Task Group on Authorities of the Cooperative Cataloging
Council
SUBJECT: National Authority Files (Name and Subject) : Request
for Recommendations and Ideas
As part of the Cooperative Cataloging Council's effort to
increase cooperative cataloging, to reduce cataloging costs to
libraries, and to improve the availability of authority records,
our Task Group has been charged to find ways of making it easier
to contribute to the national authority files (name and subject)
and to broaden contributions to these national files. To fulfill
our charge we have prepared the attached survey to collect your
recommendations and ideas.
Well over 90 libraries currently participate in the Name
Authorities Cooperative Projects (NACO) and the Cooperative
Subject Cataloging Projects (CSCP). The NACO participants are
authorized to create authority records for the national authority
files and contribute authority records using the Linked Systems
Project (LSP) through OCLC and RLIN. The participating
libraries, including consortia, have had a representative trained
at the Library of Congress. Amy McColl is compiling a training
manual for official NACO participants, which will be available
later this year and should provide a useful tool for training
more catalogers in how to create authority records.
Important issues are at stake as we move toward a new
national, or international, shared authorities system. The
attached survey aims to evoke your best suggestions for defining
what that system should be. We hope you will assist us by
filling out and returning the survey by
August 31, 1993
either via the postal service, fax, or electronic mail (see
specific addresses below).
Your ideas will be compiled and the results distributed
through this and other listservers and newsletters during
September and October. We hope to get final comments from you
before our report to the Cooperative Cataloging Council, which is
due October 31, 1993. This is a terrific opportunity to really
make a difference, so let us hear from you.
Task Group on Authorities
email: lctga@ucsd.edu
Barbara B. Tillett, Chair (University of California, San Diego)
Karen Calhoun (OCLC)
Ana Cristan, LC Representative to the Task Group (Library of
Congress)
Bill Garrison (University of Colorado)
Amy McColl (Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections
Libraries)
Sue Phillips, CCC Liaison to the Task Group (University of Texas)
---------------------------------------------
SURVEY FOR RESPONSES TO THE LC CCC TASK GROUP ON AUTHORITIES
Please complete and return by AUGUST 31, 1993 to:
Barbara Tillett
Central University Library
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
or via fax to (614) 764-0155
or via email to lctga@ucsd.edu
or lctga@ucsd.bitnet
(If sending by email, please include the question number with your
response.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Your name:
Your institution name:
Phone number:
E-mail address:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Task Group on Authorities of the Cooperative Cataloging Council
is charged with the following objective from the national cooperative
cataloging programs' Goals and Objectives:
Goal 1. Together, increase the timely availability of bibliographic
and authority records by cataloging more items, by producing
cataloging that is widely available for sharing and use by others,
and by cataloging in a more cost-effective manner.
Objective 1.6 Ease and broaden contributions to the national
authority files (LC name and subject).
The Task Group on Authorities needs your help and input on the
following questions. Please add additional sheets or expand the
space for your response, if needed. We would like to receive
individual responses to the survey, but we will accept institutional
or departmental responses as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Is your library currently a NACO and/or CSCP participant?
___yes ___no
(If no, skip to question 3)
2. If your institution is a NACO and/or CSCP participant, do you
contribute all of your Headings to the national files or only some?
Name headings ___all ____some
Subjet headings ___all ____some
Why did you choose that option?
3. Does every heading need a record in the national authority file?
___ yes ___ no
Why or why not?
4. Does your library create authority records for local use?
Name: ___yes ___no
Series: ___yes ___no
Uniform titles: ___yes ___no
Subject: ___yes ___no
Why or why not?
4a. If yes, how is that accomplished?
___ keying on local system
___ capturing a national authority record from a bibliographic
utility
___ through a vendor
___ other, please explain:
4b. Would you want your locally created records added to a
national authority file? Please explain. If yes, what do you feel
would be the best mechanism to accomplish that addition?
4c. If you do not contribute your authority records to the
national file, what could be done to entice you to do so?
5. What would you like to see done or think could be done to ease
contribution to the national authority files?
6. Do you use the USMARC authorities format? ___yes ___no
If yes, how could it be improved?
If not, why not?
7. If you do create authority records for local use, what data
elements do you include in your local authority records? (Please
indicate the USMARC fields and subfields, if appropriate).
7a. Please indicate those that you feel are essential
(mandatory) for national authority records.
7b. Which of the above data elements are indexed for purposes
of retrieval in your system?
8. Can your local system import and export authority records in
USMARC format?
Import: ___no ___yes ___we can, but we don't (explain)
Export: ___no ___yes ___we can, but we don't (explain)
9. What additional system functionality or changes would you
suggest for your local system and/or the bibliographic utilities to
make it easy to contribute to the national authority file(s)
(name/series/u.t. and subject)? Some examples:
___ windowing of authority and bibliographic records with
easy transfer of data among all kinds of records (cut
and paste/copy)
___ ability to mark headings, title, piece of the statement
of responsibility, etc. in a bibliographic record for
transfer to an authority record
___ easy record creation with templates/workforms for
authority records
___ availability of a provisional status to clearly mark
temporary records awaiting full authorization
versus
___ availability of a temporary "save" file for provisional
records to be reviewed by LC or NACO participants (or
other "authority")
___ ability to transmit authority record from local system
to utility or vendor without re-keying
___ ability to transmit authority record to national
authority file in various media: ___online; ___email;
___ diskette; ___ paper workforms; ___ other
(explain)
___ enhancement of master authority record
___ editing of master authority record for transferring to
local system
___ duplicate detection for headings and references
___ other: please explain
10. What concerns, if any, do you have about greatly expanding
contributions to the national authority files (name/series/u.t. and
subject)?
11. Would you welcome expansion of the national authority files with
records that are created not only manually, but with machine
assistance? Why or why not? (Explain what you see as "machine
assistance")
12. What changes would you suggest for the existing AACR2R and
Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (e.g., regarding reference
structures) to make it easy to contribute authority records to the
national files? (Especially indicate any rules or Rule
Interpretations you feel are inappropriate for the national shared
authority files)
13. What changes would you suggest for the existing LC Subject
Cataloging Manual to make it easy to contribute national subject
authority records?
14. If you began contributing to the national authority files, would
you feel the need for additional education and training?
___yes ___no
Why or why not? From whom, how, and where? (e.g., national ALCTS
workshops; LC; OCLC networks; other?)
15. Describe your vision of the ideal authority system, including the
role the national authority files (name/series/u.t. and subject)
would play, if any.
Thanks very much for your assistance with this survey!
