Apologies for duplication; the message below will be cross-posted to various listservs.
As part of the Connexion install this past Sunday, November 4, 2012, changes have been made to authorities indexing. These changes include the resolution of the longstanding problem that resulted in misleading subfield codes:
“Occasionally, a heading appears in browse results with a subfield code that is misleading. However, when you view the record, the subfield code that appears in the results list is not present in the record.
An example of this is browsing the LCSH index for the heading Noah's Ark. In the root index, the heading is presented as $t Noah's Ark; however, when you view the record, the heading Noah's Ark appears in $a, not $t. There is only a single subject authority record for Noah's ark, in which the heading appears only in $a (LCCN sh 85092133). But the text Noah's ark appears in $t in 9 other authority records.”
However, as part of the new indexing, users will find a change in the appearance of headings in a browse list when the ending punctuation of the heading is different. This change to indexing results in multiple listings:
ROOT:
Poe, Edgar Allan, $d 1809-1849 1 record
Poe, Edgar Allan, $d 1809-1849. 2 records
Poe, Edgar Allan, $d 1809-1849 $c (Spirit) 1 record
EXPANDED:
Poe, Edgar Allan, $d 1809-1849
E1.[100] 1 record
E2.[700] 1 record
E3.$t Fall of the house of Usher [500] 1 record
E4.$ Gold bug [100] 1 record
In the Expanded list, both the [100] and [700] relate to the first record in the Root list, and E3 and E4, that have a period prior to the $t are represented in the second entry in the root list that contains a period at the end of the $a.
Staffs are continuing to investigate options to resolve this problem without removing other marks of punctuation including hyphens associated with open dates for personal names, closing parentheses, etc.
Four new indexes have been implemented as part of the changes to authorities indexing:
cs Cataloging source (indexes 040, $a, $c, $d)
dx Descriptive rules (indexes 040, $e)
nt Notes (includes all 6xx fields)
kw Keyword (includes all variable fields)
The indexes are not currently available in the dropdown list for either the Connexion Client or Browser, they can be entered directly into the command line in the Authorities search dialog intake box. Additional information on command line searching can be found on page 7 of the document: http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/connexion/browser/authorities/find_auth_records/find_auth_records_pdf.pdf
Please contact OCLC-Support at [log in to unmask] with any questions or concerns related to this announcement.
Regards,
--Becky Dean
Product Analyst