#authority control

[organizing-libraryschool]

The Library of Congress Authority file includes subject, name, title and name/title authority records created by or for the Library of Congress.

[glamorouswindmilltilter]

Authority Control - Can I haz it?

I am still a newbie to cataloguing and therefore I am fairly positive that I am still wandering around the darkness of information services, barking my shins on the bibliographic furniture.However, I have been working on the addition of authority headings for items in two separate collections, which has been both super interesting and a little bit of a baptism of fire. 

The use of authority headings is all about Authority Control. As far as I understand it, these headings at the authorized by the Library of Congress as an established term to use. It is a control vocabulary that is agreed upon, verified and has the ability to link parts of the collection together, making it more useable. This is a bare bones summary, I am sure that this can be more fulsomely summarized, but these are the key points that I have been introduced to.  

The 'baptism of fire' comment is less about having messed up the headings themselves (I was started on a collection that was pretty transparent- adding public garden name to items within SB466. Otherwise known as books about gardens) but more about important they are and therefore the best way to use them (and by best way, I mean in the context of this information service and it's users- maybe).  

I don't think I appreciated just how cool these additions actually are- the Longwood's catalogue is definitely in need of more authority heading such as this to make the catalogue more usable. But it's the combination of local headings and OCLC heading that really starts to blow my tiny little mind when cataloguing items.

I have already mentioned my project in added heading to the SB466 part of the Library's collection, which is just the 610 (Corporate Name) or the 651 (Geographic Location) information to the existing record, all of which exist already on OCLC and which I access and export through the Connexion client. I find the names of the gardens in the table of contents, do a search, mark for export, import to the ILS, add to the MARC record and voila! All these generic  and obtuse titles, such as 'Gardens of Europe', are now infinitely more findable and useable for research.

My other project, however, is a little more complex, as it is dealing with the archival pamphlet collection that has not only an important research use, but also an organizational context. This means that some of the headings I am using have been generated locally, as these bibliographic terms are only relevant to organization and are therefore not monitored by the Library of Congress. This means that I have to search for headings not only in Connexion, but also in the ILS. And the ILS does not have the same maintenance as the Library of Congress (naturally, because time and resources). So this work turns into a find the heading, make sure there are not multiple options, ascertain ether its a full record and then allocate accordingly to the record, making notes of any changes that might need to be made to the ILS.

Because the things about having a controlled vocabulary is that it only works if it is actually controlled. And it's hard to achieve this, if there are 5 variations of the same heading and these have not been linked together in a way that would successfully retrieve all the items. Which is, understandably, a bit of a nightmare. But a nightmare that I beginning to understand more fully. I am pretty certain that this is cold comfort for the serious cataloguers out there. I can mentally here you kiss your teeth over these processes. But the database is maintained by volunteers and interns of various skillsets, interests and understanding. There are few individuals who, having been names consistently on some pretty borked headings, I would like to sit down with over a beer and give a stern talking to.  

This is soon be another interns problem, however, as I am wrapping up at Longwood and am looking forward to doing more controlled vocabulary work at Monash Uni. I don't know whether I can make the assumption that a University will have more effective local databases, but it seems likely. I do hope that my understanding and experience of authority control will increase because, gee whizz, it sure it useful.

[don-lichterman]

"It is NOT a lie if you believe it"; Why Kiril Zdrokov and KVZ Music and KVZ Digital Lies again (does he believe what he says or is he just trying to lie because the truth is finally coming out?); Beides, he contradicts himself proving the lie anyway, but still...

“It is NOT a lie if you believe it”; Why Kiril Zdrokov and KVZ Music and KVZ Digital Lies again (does he believe what he says or is he just trying to lie because the truth is finally coming out?); Beides, he contradicts himself proving the lie anyway, but still…

I have to monitor this loser that made up that site using my name and his company name in the same URL and I noticed that same rant from yesterday said something about him making some request in may 2014 to take down that comparison charthe then speaks about later on in that same paragraph (see below) that he states was taken down. I think he means may 2012 because i never spoke to that guy this…

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[lie-brary]

That the Library of Congress Authorities page is down is a clear sign I should go to bed. 

I'll have to figure out exactly when Snoop Dogg became Snoop Lion in the morning.

[dbcii]

Blogging and Controlled Vocabulary

So I am considering a blog redesign over on Comparative Geeks. I did a redesign on this blog, and changed the home page to be more like a website than a blog front-page. In the end, I think that makes this more like my portfolio or personal site than just…

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[cchelberg]

A good, quick read on ISNIs. Closely related to ISBNs, they're for names instead. They don't solve every problem (pseudonyms need to be connected separately) but they look like a great step, especially when it comes to international authors with non-roman character names.

[stephenfrancoeur]

Pull quote: "Two years ago, after giving a talk about VIAF at a RERO meeting, there were several questions about how they could not only participate in VIAF, but have a direct way of adding and modifying VIAF clusters. Thinking about how we could do this we realized that we might be able to build something that addressed both external and internal issues with VIAF. Not surprisingly, we started with our internal issues, with an eye towards the possibility of more general use. We are calling the result xA (for Extended VIAF Authority) and it is now public at http://viaf.org/hosted/xa/."