> If the new policy is that one should add dates
> whenever they're known, regardless of existing bib headings, how will this
> impact the personal name headings in a large shared environment like OCLC?
> I would guess that in addition to requiring lots more BFM for established
> headings, variant forms of unauthorized names will occur more frequently as
> well.
>
> Stephen Hearn
At the University of Washington, we have a policy that catalogers report
to OCLC (using the error report feature in Connexion) any records that
they find that have a heading that isn't in synch with an authority record
that they have created or modified. This is above and beyond the NACO
requirement that we report such things to LC. We feel that this is the
best way to help OCLC stay in synch with the LC/NACO authority file and
that the extra time taken to report this will benefit us later when we
need to use one of those records for some newly acquired item.
Unfortunately, there is no good mechanism for reporting the changed
heading to all of the libraries who have already used a particular
bibliographic record. This is one reason that I don't give much weight to
arguments that library catalogs won't all be in synch -- they already are
not, have never been, and what is most important I believe is that
libraries strive within their own catalog to be consistent in the
application of headings. It's less important that we all use the exact
same form than it is that within our individual systems we are consistent.
While I appreciate the arguments about filing problems with dates that
include "b." or "d." or "fl." in front of them, this again is a result of
poor system designs. We should be demanding that programmers of library
automation systems come up with a solution - how hard is it really to
design a system that can ignore the abbreviation in front of the date for
the purposes of sorting? We should determine what kind of heading would
work best for our users and for the ease of catalogers and then tell our
library vendors what we need from them to improve sorts, displays, etc.
I hate to see progress halted because of what some or most systems can do
today. I feel strongly that while the development of our cataloging code
can be informed by current technological abilities/limitations, that it
nevertheless should be somewhat independent them and must be based on a
principled approach not linked to any given automated system's
capabilities.
--Adam Schiff
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* Adam L. Schiff *
* Principal Cataloger *
* University of Washington Libraries *
* Box 352900 *
* Seattle, WA 98195-2900 *
* (206) 543-8409 *
* (206) 685-8782 fax *
* [log in to unmask] *
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