Posted by Mia in cataloguing, Circulation, CLUES/WebPAC, Collections.
A while back I graduated myself to building custom load tables for e-books that automagically create and populate a checkin record on the way in. This replaces our older method of attaching item records for e-book bibs. When you thnk about it, item records are essential for tracking discrete physical items, and don’t have much utility for a virtual resource. That’s not to say that item records don’t still play a role for tracking certain kinds of information, but their use as a component of the presentation layer is what needed to be re-examined.
The custom load table takes the 856 info which is resident in the bib, and maps it to a checkin record for display in the WebPAC. Thus, no 856 link remains as part of the bib, but rather is transmuted into a checkin record with a linking field. Checkin records can be associated with resources in ERM, and can be made to act in a smarter fashion than item records
We now employ this model — that is, to automatically generate a checkin record, rather than an item record — when we load bib records for e-books (loosely termed), and it seems to be working out pretty nicely. We’ve used this method for sets of records for things like the Canadian Publishers Collection, as well as EEBO and will use it for ECO records as well.
Posted by Mia in Collections, Frontiers, metadata.
To continue on my name thread, I think it’s reasonable for an academic library to make a commitment to establish and contribute the names of the faculty at their home institution to NACO, and at least have the institution’s faculty names represented in LAF authority files and consequently incorporated into VIAF and/or other initiatives as one more step in the road to author identification. Granted the marc authority record structure and format may not be optimal, but at least these are well-understood mechanisms in academic libraries which are widely in place.
Many academic libraries have already created or downloaded name authority records as part of the normal cataloguing process for their own faculty when published material has been acquired for the collection, though it may not have been policy to create an authority record for faculty members in every instance (for example, when there isn’t a name variation at hand).
It is not impossible to envision an expanded library role with respect to author identification for unpublished material typically deposited in IRs into the workflow. There would be significant overlap between the national authority files and author names present in IRs (cf DAI project; and Van Spanje’s presentation given at UK Serials Group 2007). As with the Netherlands project, existing name authority structures can be put to work while we wait for other or additional mechanisms to emerge.
Author identification can be further augmented by repository players, including the library, as things mutate and move along. With repositories workflows now coming more into play, libraries should be poised to start making some active contributions regarding the author identification issue.
Posted by Mia in Collections, Frontiers, metadata.
We need to be cognizant of the huge importance that author identification, including personal and corporate names, has for repositories, and to take a more pro-active role in this area.
One contribution that an academic library can make to general institutional repository workflows is in the area of author identification — a.k.a. name verification or authority control — for faculty members. Start with theses. Where theses are part of the IR, faculty names are generally represented as theses supervisors. Libraries generally add theses to their own catalogued collections, so minimally, author identification for the IR can start at the thesis deposit stage and move along in a yet-to-be-determined workflow.
Why would we not want to control for variations likely to start quickly populating themselves in repositories? In the UK, where repositories are well-established, the JISC-funded Names Project is focusing on just such a problem. (With some irony, not the only initiative which goes by the name of The Names Project).
From the JISC commissioned Report of the Subject and Institutional Repositories Interactions Study (Nov. 28, 2008), the first recommendation is:
- Clear identification of authors, funders and higher education institutions
Being able to locate with authority and consistency the identity of a person or corporate body attached to a research output is vital for any repository data exchange process and is hugely important for any service running over the top of repositories. Although different stakeholders may need this information at different levels of detail, it is an acknowledged issue.
Indeed.
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