1. What to do about provisional records: without provisional records, a large portion (perhaps the majority) of our subject headings would not be linked to an authority (and many other headings as well). LC has started creating authorities for subject/floating subdivision pairs, but since the possible combinations are astronomical... we'd always need provisionals, if we need them.
While provisional authority records have been loaded and used in certain ways in the library's Sirsi ILS, one should not make the assumption that they must necessarily operate the same way in the new system. The basic question of the need (or lack thereof) for "provisional" authority records must be addressed to Aleph. Out of several hundred libraries using LTI's continuing services, only 8 (including Emory) get provisional records from our processing; about half are Sirsi libraries. None of our clients that use Aleph are in this group. This suggests strongly that, if some type of brief authority records are required by the ILS, they are being created at the time they are needed by the system itself.
We need to find out what the consequences for that would be in Aleph, in terms of
--updating strategies for these headings and other uses we have had for provisionals such as:
--storage of local notes about a series, name, etc., as well as
--a visual cue to catalogers looking at the record that the heading is "authorized," needed for authority checking/validation of individual records and reports of unlinked headings).
Again, questions for Aleph. However, if the library moves to a more streamlined workflow, one might expect less focus on tasks like updating provisional headings and authority checking/validation by staff. LTI processing automatically provides reports of headings which have failed to link on $a and, optionally, "partially validated headings" -- headings which link on $a but not on some subsequent subfield. (These are, overwhelmingly, name/title headings in which the name portion of the heading could be linked but the title portion could not.)
Note that, in most cases, there is nothing "wrong" with headings that appear on the "unlinked headings" report. That said, any heading which is really wrong will be found there. Some libraries do nothing with the report; others examine it in detail. If asked, I generally recommend that someone quickly scan it for the obvious problem headings, correct those headings in the bib file and re-send the revised records through AEX. Upon request, I can forward to you a more detailed response I sent to a library suggesting a moderate approach to the unlinked headings list from a batch authorization project.
Furthermore, full use of LTI services will relieve the staff of the need to re-search headings for newly issued authority records, as AUP re-authorizes the entire database, checking headings that did not link in earlier processing. If a match to an authority record can be made, the record is provided.
Could LTI generate a new batch of provisionals for us if we reset our "history file" with them? Or, would we be able to generate "provisional" authority records in Aleph once we've loaded our bibs, based on unlinked headings, and if so how/when that could be accomplished? Will we continue to receive provisional records with AEX?
Whether or not a library receives provisional authority records from LTI processing is controlled by the library's profile, and is consistent across both the AEX and AUP services. If a completely new set of authority records is pulled for Emory, a new set of provisional records can also be provided, based on the profile.
1(2).: Local notes in authorities (both LC and provisional): We don't want to manually re-enter all the notes about treatment of series (analyzed or not) and other notes. LTI's suggestion seems good, if we can do it, but this would be a job for Systems (sifting out provisionals and LC authorities that have our local notes in them) and their time is pretty booked between now and STP.
Alternative that could be investigated if needed:
go ahead and load the Unicorn authorities in Aleph;
use an Aleph service to search and identify all records that have local notes (assuming we can identify them by tag/subfield);
export those from Aleph;
delete old Unicorn authorities from Aleph,
then load new set of authorities from LTI (based on our re-set History file which could be the bibs extracted for migration?).
This assumes that we do use provisionals...
Advantage: Doesn't push the migration schedule, since it would happen after STP
Possible disadvantage: We'd have to work out ahead of time, the timing on this, and find out if "down time" for Aleph is required. Would require some Systems assistance.
Other alternative (not as "clean"):
Go ahead and load Unicorn authorities
Run the service to delete authorities that have no headings linked
Not clear if there would be value to load a fresh batch of LC authorities from LTI, to overlay/update existing LC authorities or load "new" if we don't have that record.
Continue receiving provisionals with new AEX
Disadvantages: still could retain some of the duplicate provisional mess. Examining test load 2 could give us a picture of how this plays out in Aleph.
LTI has no remarks on the above, as it all seems to concern local decisions about handling of provisional authority records. It occurs to me, however, that the library needs to confirm that its authority files can be exported in MARC-21 format, as there was a time when Sirsi systems could not do so. This may have changed, but it would be prudent to confirm prior to designing complex routines using the exported file.
Neither strategy will give us authorities that LTI sent us already, that didn't get loaded, right?
I cannot emphasize too strongly that the library should send LTI a new copy of its existing bibliographic database and receive a completely new set of authority records, based on the headings in that database. These authority records should be loaded into the new ILS to create the authority file in Aleph. This is the only way in which the library can be certain that it has all the authority records needed for the headings in its bib database, only those authority records referenced in that file, and that all of the authority records are up-to-date.
2. Level 2 (Comprehensive) processing: I am starting to see the potential advantage to this. But, have questions:
Will the revised bibs that come back to be re-loaded from this process, get updates to LCSH with floating subdivisions (the bulk of our "provisional" records)?
In other words, if the base heading changes (e.g. Afro-Americans changed to African Americans and all the subjects built on this term changed, Afro-Americans |x Employment, etc.), will LTI change the headings?
If they don't, the service isn't "automated enough," so I am assuming they do, but didn't see a statement specifically addressing this.
As stated before, the main difference between the old "Level I" Authority Update Processing now used by Emory, and the current comprehensive service (formerly known as "Level II") is the additional file of the library's revised bibliographic records -- with the corrected headings in place -- in each AUP run.
If they do, what happens with provisional records? If we don't get updated provisionals from LTI (which is not a service they offered before), would those headings show as "unlinked" in Aleph? Would we generate new provisionals in Aleph? ????
Again, you will need to consult with Aleph about provisional records -- and perhaps revisit how much effort should go into maintaining them.
I am a little unclear on how the process "Reviewing reports, occasionally backing out an incorrect change, and doing local bib maintenance" suggested by LTI in the last paragraph, will be accomplished in Aleph. We need to find out more about "backing out an incorrect change".
Page 9 of my reply shows an example of a general-to-specific name change:
My response continues:
"This example of a “gsar” (general to specific) change is found in the LSA report of each AUP run. The goal of this section is to advise libraries where bib file maintenance may, in fact be needed. The notation “The old ‘100’ heading is now authorized in…” indicates a strong likelihood that the people represented by the personal name headings are now different. However, the work flow can be adjusted so that the authority records are already loaded and, at most an unneeded one can be deleted rather than searching for new ones to import. On occasion, the needed authority will not have been given to the library, but, in most cases, it has."
Bib file maintenance would be to revise the bib record(s) and send the revised bib(s) through AEX. If the authority record for the more general heading is no longer needed, it can be deleted from the library's file and included in an AEX file of LC deletes at some time in the future.
I think there is a facility in Aleph for reviewing changes and approving or rejecting them before implementing them in authorities (similar to "load for review" in Unicorn, which probably no one but me has ever used!), but am really fuzzy on it (has anyone seen a description in documentation?)
Approving or rejecting authority records or changes one by one -- in any system -- demands an inordinate amount of staff time. To streamline effectively the workflow for authority control, the presumption must become that the LTI work is correct until proven otherwise, rather than that staff review is necessary prior to using the LTI-created files. In the rare case when an LTI error is encountered, we encourage libraries to report it to us so that we can revise our processing and, thereby, make the correction for other libraries.
Additionally, please be aware that, while many local systems (including Aleph) now contain an "automated authority component", such a module is not a substitute for the comprehensive update provided by AUP. In fact, use of such software can easily, and monumentally, corrupt a clean database. Full use of Authority Update Processing goes beyond the "automated record changing" capability that is available through local system software.
Our understanding of local system "authority control" modules indicates that these components use as the basis for all changes the presence of the "old" heading as a 4xx field in an authority record. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. There are several problems, however, in relying solely on that approach. For example, there are times when LC does not carry over the "old" heading -- when that happens, the process breaks down. It's likely that there will be many cases in which a link should NOT be made -- LTI blocks thousands of links which have been identified as "false drops". Changes that affect free-floating subdivisions cannot be made unless an explicit authority record exists for the whole heading, so the work in identifying these cases falls to staff. There may also be problems in linking the "old" heading because of variations in capitalization, spacing or punctuation -- in either bib headings or in LC authority records (LTI sees hundreds of such errors in LC records each week.... too many even to report all of them.) I can't tell how identification and deletion of LC-cancelled authority records fits into this procedure, so I can't speak to that issue. Internal analysis shows that reliance on the LC record alone misses at least one in three changes made by the sophisticated routines built into Authority Update Processing.
In addition, because AUP re-authorizes the entire library database, in that manner records can be identified which apply to a heading in the bib file and have been newly added by LC.
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