We had a conversation recently with one of our clients regarding the usability of the Near Match report. This client wanted to be able to make adjustments to the report, then give us the report back and have us implement those changes. At first, we didn’t know whether there was much we could do, but we started thinking more and more about the possibilities.
Here is a quick example of what the report looks like (in XLS format):
No | Bib ID | Records | UNM | Unmatched Heading | %-1 | Tag-1 | Near Match-1 | Authority-1 |
1 | ocm09600186 | 1 | 100 | $a Cole, W. V. | 87.5% | 100 | $a Cole, W. F. |
The unmatched heading is listed with a confidence value (%) with the primary near match to the right of it.
The idea is that you could review the Near Match XLS report, remove the rows that are safe to ignore, and then return the full XLS file to us. At that point, we perform some conversion and matching on our side and end up with an authority record to send back to you with the older (unmatched) form of the heading as a 4XX field.
Taking the example above, then, we would end up with the modified authority record like so (I have excised some fields for brevity sake):
001 no2001013661
100 $a Cole, W. F.
400 $a Cole, W. V. $5 BSLW
When you load this authority into your system, that 4XX finds a match against your older/unmatched bib heading(s) and now flips it to the authorized 1XX version instead.
In the past, this would have been done through a protracted process (either on our side or yours) with the R07 Unmatched Headings report. But since we’ve developed this Near Match report, we have the actual authority LCCN that may be what the heading should be changed to. And this is linked within the XLS report, so you can directly bring up the authority record and compare to your bib record if desired.
If this is something you would be interested in, just let us know. We can begin implementing this for you immediately.
Nate Cothran | Vice President, Automation Services
Backstage Library Works | Provo, Utah & Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
801.342.5697 | nate@bslw.com | bslw.com | ac.bslw.com/mars