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Dear PCCLIST readers,

John Hostage wrote, "I don't particularly like the idea of using (Pseudonym) because it's a characteristic of the name rather than the person or identity." But that's what a name authority record is about: a name, rather than a person or identity.  NARs can document information about all three concepts, but what is being established is a heading, and the heading is based on the name.  Historically, we've had problems with that, in particular because an undifferentiated NAR is about a heading based on a name shared by multiple persons/identities.

I'm in favor of qualifiers whenever they will help a catalog user.  For example, I wish that Charlie Chan had a name authority record.  Actually there is one (no 98047732) but it doesn't refer to the fictional character referred to in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan.    Instead, we have sh 93005499 Chan, Charlie (Fictitious character).  WorldCat has seven cases of the unqualified form used as a subject heading - not many, but enough to illustrate the point.

Sincerely - Ian

Ian Fairclough
Cataloging and Metadata Librarian
George Mason University
703-993-2938
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