SECTION III

Name authority work considerations and the Interim Guidelines for Name Verification

CONSIDERATIONS

Bibliographic records: Bibliographic records in most databases reflect the descriptive cataloging standards of their creation era (e.g., pre-AACR2 or AACR2 rules). However access points of ALL bibliographic records should now be controlled by National Authority File (NAF) official headings when those headings are available.

The National Authority File: The National Authority File contains AACR2 official headings ("Rules: c" in Fixed fields), AACR2 compatible official headings ("Rules: d" in Fixed fields), and a few pre-AACR2 official headings ("Rules: b [or] a" in Fixed fields) from NAF's start-up days. The NAF is continuously being updated with revisions to official headings and the addition of new authorities. Unfortunately, many access points found on pre-AACR2 and AACR2 bibliographic records are not yet represented or accounted for in the NAF. For series, we supplement the NAF series decisions with local decisions registered in the Master File. We have no equivalent local authority file for names, uniform titles, or subjects.

Pre-ALEPH era: Blackwell North America's (BNA) services were utilized in an ongoing authorities clean up project for fourteen of the current USMAI. The project ended in 1998. Both machine matching and manual matching were applied. A MARC 997 field was added as a marker on all bibliographic records undergoing BNA's authorization process. Blackwell North America fully authorized bibliographic access points when full exact matches were made on authority records. It partially authorized bibliographic access points when only partial matches were made on authority records. It returned bibliographic access points unchanged when no matches were made on authority records. Since then, variations to authorized headings have crept into our database through subsequent loads of new bibliographic records.

ALEPH era: In 2002, USMAI began switching from CARL to Aleph. The Aleph Switch to Production was Jan. 6, 2003. Aleph is USMAI's third library integrated management system (abbreviated LIMS3). The University of Maryland Information Technology Division (ITD), the LIMS3 Implementation Working Group (IWG), and the Database Loader and Management Committee (DLM) worked together on the implementation of Aleph and have begun work on the implementation of Authority Control functions in Aleph. The USMAI Cataloging Policy Committee (CPC), a DLM sub-committee, developed the catalogusmai Bibliographic Standards. At the appropriate time DLM will likely have a sub-committee develop the catalogusmai Authority Control Standards. Before loading authority records into Aleph, there will be another re-authorization of the USMAI bibliographic database that will clean up a wide variety of access points, including names.

Controllable name access points on completed cataloging records in catalogusmai: Due to pending authority work to be outsourced, these name access points for now will not be maintained unless obvious and egregious errors are encountered in the course of daily work. Nevertheless, checking the MARC tagging associated with them for accuracy is always required. Click here for more information on MARC documentation.

UM PromptCat Profile: The UM PromptCat profile accepts the bibliographic records of U.S. national level cataloging agencies (Library of Congres (OCLC symbol: DLC), National Library of Medicine (OCLC symbol: NLM), and those authenticated by the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (tagged with a 042 pcc) with Encoding level (ELvl) blank or 4. The name access points on these bibliographic records have been authorized in National Authority File.

Bibliographic Record Notification: An OCLC service which automatically delivers upgraded records to University of Maryland Libraries based on the Bibliographic Record Notification (Bib Notification) profile UM set up with OCLC. This service compliments the UM PromptCat profile by upgrading Cataloging in Publication (CIP) (ELvl 8) bibliographic records, by upgrading other OCLC records in UM catalogs to ones that are U.S. national level, DLC Copycat or pcc authenticated, and by upgrading bibliographic records that have an ELvl lower than I to ELvl I and above when appropriate.

INTERIM GUIDELINES FOR NAME VERIFICATION

These guidelines will be re-evaluated when the Aleph Authority Module becomes fully operational and we understand its capabilities.

catalogusmai records that WILL NOT be verified:

• catalogusmai records used in copy cataloging (exceptions may be made for truly egregious errors)
• Aleph provisional records created using the Item, Acquisition, Cataloging, Circulation, or Reserve modules
• MARCIVE records (SLS and Full)
• PromptCat records

OCLC export records and catalogusmai records that MAY need to be verified:

• Acquisition order records that are OCLC records
• OCLC records you export into Aleph

INTERIM GUIDELINES FOR WHAT TO VERIFY

• Do not verify name AACR2 access points found on DLC $c DLC, NLM, DLC copycat, or pcc bibliographic records. (fixed field Desc: a = AACR2; 040 field = Cataloging Source; 042 = Authenication Code)
• Verify pre-AACR2 name access points. (fixed field Desc i (blank or u) = pre-AACR2)
• Verify name access points found in OCLC on member bibliographic records (unless they are pcc-see 1st bullet).
• Verify name access points found in OCLC on UKM, NLC, AUT national level bibliographic records.

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