Authority Control on a Big Scale - Kansas State University Libraries

Did you know that on average it takes a cataloger three minutes per heading to match or create an authority record? Imagine matching authority records for approximately 1.5 million bibliographic records with an average of three to five headings per bibliographic record. This was the task faced by Kansas State University librarians.

The Kansas State University Libraries’ bibliographic and authority records were out of sync, presenting librarians with the prospect of an overwhelming cleanup project. Their task was made even more enormous by a need for headings adjustments, changes to MARC since their last catalog cleanup in the early 1990s, and the recent Library of Congress decision to add death dates to the bibliographically undead. Rather than attempt a manual cleanup, the librarians opted for automation and contracted with Backstage Library Works to run their bibliographic records through an automated authority control process.

The adventure started late July 2005, several months prior to the December 2005 contract signing. Weekly meetings were held between the Backstage Library Works product manager and the Kansas State University Libraries’ original catalogers led by database maintenance librarian Michelle Turvey and authority control coordinator Margaret Kaus. The first few months involved discussing what authority control process was needed and determining how BSLW would customize their software to do what the Kansas State University Libraries’ needed.

The Backstage Library Works authority control software is very customizable. Above and beyond the over one-hundred standard bibliographic modifications and over nineteen-thousand rules used for authority matching, it can accomplish almost any custom task. With the Kansas State University Libraries BSLW staff not only stretched the limits, they redefined them. ”It was a great experience with many learning opportunities,” says Judy Archer, project manager for Backstage Library Works. 

The real work began upon completion of the Kansas State University Libraries’ profiles and submission of their first of many data samples. From first run to completion, the following customizations, in addition to the standard modifications, were incorporated for the Kansas State University Libraries:

• Deletion of fields 653, 870, 871, 873, 886, 890, 938
• Deletion of any 6XX tag that had a 2nd indicator of 4, 6, or 8
• Deletion of the 740$h
• Additional indicator updates to the 110, 111, 410, 411, 610, 611, 710, 711 tags converting 1st indicator of “0” to “2”
• Modification to 007 tag when 007 was not present and leader byte 06 was “i” or “j,” the program changed default 007 to a generic “sd”
• Correction of angle brackets < > left from a previous system migration to square brackets [ ] when found in the following: 245 (any subfield), 250$a and/or $b, 260$a$b$c, 300 (any subfield), 440 (any subfield), 490 (any subfield), 504$a
• Move of local data for e-journals and aggregator packages from 710 and 730 fields into 910 and 930 fields respectively
• Rearrangement of the following data: 305 $a1 disc. $c33 1/3 rpm. $emono. $b10 in. to 300$a1 disc. :$b33 1/3 rpm., mono. ;$c10 in.
• Rearrangement of the following data; 305 $a2 s. $b12 in. $c33 1/3 rpm. $dmicrogroove to 300 $a2 s. $b33 1/3 rpm., microgroove $c 12 in.

 

In addition to these customizations, some special   processing was needed to complete the job for the Kansas State University Libraries. The approximately 1.5 million bibliographic records were exported in UTF-8 (a.k.a. Unicode) and needed to be returned in UTF-8.

BSLW staff converted the original UTF-8 records into MARC8 and then ran two scripts to change the angle brackets to square brackets and to fix data in the 305 tags.  Next, they ran the data through the authority control process changing headings and delivering all of the matching Library of Congress authority records. Finally, they returned all the data to UTF-8 and delivered both updated bibliographic records and the newly matched authority records to the Kansas State University Libraries.

The actual processing took about two weeks, but the planning, customization and testing went on for months and was a discovery process as well as a learning experience for both the Kansas State University Libraries’ and Backstage Library Works. Michelle Turvey, KSU database maintenance librarian said, “We are pleased with the successful completion of the project and look forward to using the current cataloging service to keep our authority files up-to-date.”

 

by John Reese