There has been some back and forth on OCLC-CAT recently with respect to DACS headings and authority control processing.

DACS stands for Describing Archives: A Content Standard. These are a set of rules for describing archival materials designed to extend the rules in AACR2. An issue develops with family names, which are not allowed as creators (100 or 700) by LC standards, and can only be used as subject headings (6XX). What is happening is that the DACS rules allow more specific forms of a name to be used as an author heading, but are being flipped to the “official” LC form because it matches on one of the 4XX xrefs in the LC authority record.

While RDA also allows family names in author (creator) fields, we have decided to address these DACS records only at this time.

If your record contains 040 $e dacs your authority control processing will ignore the 1XX and 7XX headings within those records. It will also ignore the specific 6XX subject headings that have $2 dacs. Other “non-DACS” subject headings (6XX) will be controlled in the manner you have set up through your online profile.

Of course, if you would prefer that we treat these records differently than we have stated above, please just let your project managers (Judy Archer, Jeremy Myntti) know and we will work with you to match our processing to your expectations.

Nate Cothran - nate@bslw.com

Product Manager, Automation

Backstage Library Works

533 E 1860 S, Provo UT 84606

(p) 801.342.5697 - (f) 801.356.8220