On Sunday, OCLC will change its online validation rules for authority
records to invalidate first indicator value 2 in personal name heading and
reference fields 100, 400, and 500. This change coincides with the change
to invalidate first indicator value 2 in personal name heading fields in
bibliographic records. Bibliographic records in WorldCat have been
previously scanned and corrected to change the obsolete indicator value from
2 to 1, and OCLC has been working with the Library of Congress to supply
corrections to the authority file via a macro. To date, approximately
158,000 authority records have been changed, but 76,000 still need to be
corrected. We currently anticipate that the authority record corrections
will be completed by the end of the year or earlier. With diminishing
numbers of records containing the obsolete indicator value, it made sense to
change validation in authority records now so that it would match the
corresponding change in bibliographic records. Any authority records with
the obsolete indicator value will only be detected if you use the "validate"
command or specifically edit a heading or reference field with the obsolete
indicator value. In these cases, OCLC recommends that you correct the
indicator value from 2 to 1. You can address any questions or concerns to
Robert Bremer at <[log in to unmask]>.
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