I wonder if Sherlock Holmes’ name heading should have 374 Fictitious character as well as Detective. It seems there should be some way to distinguish between real and fictitious characters.

Ted Gemberling

UAB Lister Hill Library

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mascaro,Michelle J
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2013 12:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCCLIST] Subject Authority Records for Sherlock Holmes

A colleague of mine brought to my attention that per the 010 in  no2013039964 the subject heading  record  “150 __ Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character)” (sh 85061506) was merged into the name authority record  “100 1_ Holmes, Sherlock.”  However, sh 85061506 still exists in the LCSH file.  Authority record no2013039964 has been coded as being valid both as a name and subject heading.

This naturally brought up questions on what is the current practice for handling subject access for fictitious characters.  Per H-1610, subject heading authority records, tagged 150, with the appellation of (Fictitious character) are still to be used for subject access and the new author authority records are not supposed to be used as subject headings.  Is this still the case, or has this policy changed as part of the July updates to the RDA Toolkit?

Thanks,

Michelle Mascaro

Assistant Professor of Bibliography

Coordinator, Cataloging Services and Special Collections Cataloger

University Libraries

The University of Akron

Akron, OH 44325-1712

330-972-2446 (Electronic Services, Cataloging Unit)

330-972-6830 (Archival Services)