FINAL REPORT OF THE USMAI AUTHORITIES II TASK GROUP

August 24, 2006

The Council of Library Directors charged the Authorities II Task Group to implement authority control for catalogUSMAI as specified in the FINAL REPORT OF THE USMAI AUTHORITIES TASK GROUP, dated May 18, 2005 (see http://www.lib.umd.edu/TSD/ACT/USMAI_Authorities_Task_Group_Report.doc). The overarching principle in the Task Group's recommendation is that authority work should be outsourced as much as possible.

Over the past year, the Task Group developed processing specifications for the vendor, LTI, to validate names, titles, series, LCSH, and MeSH in records from catalogUSMAI and provide corresponding authority records. The Task Group also developed bibliographic record extract specifications with ITD.

Records were extracted and sent to LTI on May 5, 2006, according to the Task Group's specifications. Records with nonroman characters were not sent because the vernacular coding was moved into "controlled" fields to address a catalog display problem. These records will need to have the original fields restored and will be sent to LTI at a later date. The College Park records acquired from the Library of Congress (known as UMC99), and the SM records acquired from AutoGraphics were also not sent to LTI for processing. These records have been sent to OCLC for holdings to be posted in WorldCat. Records with OCLC numbers will be returned and the "fresh" records will overlay the existing records by system number. These two groups of records also will be sent to LTI at a later date.

The Authority control processing of 2,946,661 bibliographic records was completed on June 30, 2006.  The authorized bibliographic records were reloaded in July, matching on system number and the indexes rebuilt. Some regularly received files of bibliographic records were not loaded during the time our database was under LTI review.  This backlog of files was loaded into the catalog as of August 4, 2006. 

An extremely high percentage of the headings on the USMAI bibliographic records matched and linked to authority records. The Final Link Report from LTI shows that the records contained 12,349,653 controlled headings, of which 97.7% linked to an existing authority record.  Specifically, 11,605,666 headings [94%] linked to an LC authority record and another 461,095 [3.7%] linked to a LTI authority record. 

During authorization 1,882,324 headings [15%] were changed to link the library's heading to the appropriate LC authority record.  There were 252,776 unique forms of headings that could not be linked to an authority record.   LTI indicated that most libraries do nothing with the unlinked headings. But they are accessible and may be loaded into a word processor for subsequent manipulation. The Task Group recommends that USMAI Catalogers not institute a formal project to address the unlinked headings. However, there may be "pockets" of headings where some review and action is needed, e.g. certain headings for music materials.

LTI extracted:
   1,381,900   LC name/title/series related authority records;
      135,928   LC subject-related authority records;
        22,203   NLM MeSH subject authority records; and,
            464   LC Annotated Card "sj" authority records.   
 

The Authorities I Task Group determined that the juvenile subject authority records will not be loaded.

The total cost of the processing was $152,333.05. This includes $5,000 for set-up and special processing fees.

• Public display. The next steps are to determine the public display interface for the authority records and the cross references. The User Interface Task Group has already begun to look at the options available. Estimated completion date is fall 2006. — UITG
• Specifications and indexes. Once those decisions are made, the specifications for loading the authority records and integrating the headings into the indexes will be created and then the indexes will be rebuilt. Estimated completion date is December 2006. — CPC and ITD
• Authority processing for new bibliographic records. An extract schedule for sending new bibliographic records LTI will need to be developed. The task group recommends that extracts be sent on a monthly basis. — ITD
• Schedule a time to extract and ship the nonroman, UMC99, and the Autographics records to LTI. — CPC and ITD
• Updating the bibliographic and authority file. Develop the necessary specifications to allow for ongoing vendor maintenance of the bibliographic and authority files for names, titles, series, LCSH and MeSH. The task group proposes that this process be performed twice each year, beginning in February 2007. — CPC
• Cataloging Policy Review. Explore the features of LTI processing services and the functionality of ALEPH and identify the implications for cataloging policies. — CPC
• Open Forum. The Task Group recommends that an open forum or fora be considered after UITG has made its proposal regarding display of authority information in the WEB OPAC. — CPC and UITG

The Authorities II Task Group will continue to work with CPC throughout the fall semester to plan and to move undone tasks to the CPC agenda. Ongoing planning for authority maintenance should center on the principle of outsourcing the work, rather than attempting to launch a full scale authority process locally. Exploration of the ALEPH Authority functionality should not commence until after USMAI has jumped to version 18. The exploration should be based on the new functionality and enhance the outsourcing model.

The Task Group would like to acknowledge the contributions of two past members: Robert Bratton and Janet Lee Smeltzer, consultant: Marlene Vikor, and the staff of ITD.

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