At my III site, the way I identify names needing to be changed is to wait until the day after the Automated Authority Control Processing has run and then move the 'blind headings' report to a review file.  I then open two instances of Millennium -- one to have the review file open and the other for 'Global Update' where I search each 'blind' heading and add the death date to the names globally.  I also add a 4xx line to the authority record with the name without a death date when that name is in the catalog 10 or more times.  Example:

400 19 Ledger, Heath,|d1979-|wnnea

The 2nd indicator of '9' indicates that this is locally added and the coding of the |w keeps this 'see' reference from displaying in the public catalog.

The additional 'see' reference will bring to my attention any bib. records added to the catalog later in the Invalid Headings report.

One caveat: using the Blind Headings report does *not* work if the person has more than one authority record; that is, for anyone with an author/title authority record because it's not 'blind.'

I deal with the lengthy reports (last month, HELIN had 10 separate reports just for name changes) by having someone cross off any where the 'old' version of the name has a death date so I can concentrate on those that MIGHT have changes other than the removal of the 2nd indicator or final period.

But the best solution for all of us is for BSLW to figure out how NOT to include on the reports changed authority records with just the removal of 2nd indicators or final periods.  I'm sure they're working on it!

--Martha

Martha Rice Sanders
Knowledge Management Librarian,
The HELIN Consortium
401-874-4951
msanders@etal.uri.edu

At 05:31 PM 7/29/2008, you wrote:
Thanks to all responders for your suggestions.  We do use the III automated Authority Control Processing, but as as far as I can tell it doesn't eliminate the need to go through the BSLW reports to identify the added death dates and such that need to be updated manually.

The latest BSLW newsletter announces an enhancement survey *and* discusses the capabilities of the Backstage Automated Rules Engine.  Perhaps the awesome capabilities of BARE could be applied to eliminating the barely-changed authorities from reports.  My staff really doesn't like getting those reports from me to work on.

Ted Waller
Carlyle Campbell Library
Meredith College
Raleigh, N.C.


Martha Sanders wrote:
Ted,

I feel your pain!  One piece of III software that might help you is Automated Authority Control Processing which III can turn on for you if you don't yet have it activated.  It takes newly added and changed authority records and runs them overnight against the bibliographic database, changing the bib. records to match the changed authority records.  This generates Headings Reports, including: The first one contains a listing of each heading changed.  It's not fool-proof, but this is so much more effective that globally updating each one.  It doesn't, however, help with death dates because no 4xx is added by LC to the authority record for the old (still alive) version of the name unless you choose BSLW's custom programming to do this.

I did a presentation at the last IUG with two friends on III authority control, which you will find on the IUG website:

http://innovativeusers.org/programpages/IUG2008/i1

Your institution will need to be a member of the Innovative Users Group to open the presentation.  Let me know if you can.

--Martha

Martha Rice Sanders
Knowledge Management Librarian,
The HELIN Consortium
401-874-4951
msanders@etal.uri.edu

At 03:18 PM 7/29/2008, Ted Waller wrote:
Has anyone developed/discovered any techniques to speed up cleanup for the quarterly authority updates from BSLW?  We get a list of 6,000 changed headings each quarter that have to be reviewed after loading the changed MARC authority records.  Our III system replaces the changed authority records but we have to change the  headings in bib records manually.  There's no way to automate the process (Global Update for individual headings helps a little), but is there a way to speed up the review of headings in the reports?  The vast majority of headings don't require updates, as we know, but I would like a way to quickly zero in on those that do, like the headings where a death date is added.  It's frustrating to have to review 6,000 headings when only 150 bib. records need changing.

In other words, I am looking for a way to quickly identify the few changed authorities that also have headings in our bib. records that need to be changed.

I refer to the updates as quarterly, but others may get them more or less frequently.
--
Ted Waller
Carlyle Campbell Library
Meredith College
Raleigh, N.C.