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<small><font face="Arial"> Since I have now written my summary, maybe
too late to reach most ALA attendees but will post anyway, and it will
be there when you get back. I finished before reading most of the ones
already posted, so this contains a lot of "me too" items.<br>
<br>
<i>1). Do the FAST headings as a group seem to cover the "aboutness" of
the item? (This will be difficult because we'll have only the bib
record. We can't count on the title to be explicit enough to give us
the "aboutness." If there's a contents note or a summary, that will
help.)</i><br>
<br>
The major problem I saw, with geographic subdivisions converted to
headings that seem too broad, is
under sect. 3.<br>
<br>
There were a few records where the concepts didn't come through clearly
in the deconstructed headings. This mainly had to do with
relationships: e.g. 726:<br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span
style=""> </span>16
648<span style=""> </span>7 $a 1700 - 1799 $2 fast</span><br>
<span style=""> </span>17 650<span style=""> </span>7 $a Colonies
$x Administration $2 fast<span style=""><br>
</span>18 651<span style=""> </span>7 $a India $z Bengal $2 fast<span
style=""><br>
</span>19 651<span style=""> </span>7 $a Asia $2 fast<span style=""><br>
</span>20 651<span style=""> </span>7 $a Great Britain $2 fast<span
style=""><br>
</span>21 655<span style=""> </span>7 $a History $2 fast
<br>
<br>
Which country's colonies are being administered? Which country's
history is being told? Not sure how to improve this...<br>
<br>
Original headings were<span style=""><br>
<br>
</span>16 651<span style=""> </span>0 $a Bengal (India) $x History
$y 18th
century.<span style=""><br>
</span>17 651<span style=""> </span>0 $a Great Britain $x Colonies
$z Asia $x
Administration.
<br>
<br>
There were a few (19 out of 380) where the original heading was clearly
or probably describing the form/genre of the item, not subject. These
included music headings. Examples: <span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br>
<br>
650<span style=""> </span>7 $a
String quartets $x Scores and parts $2 fast (record 534)</span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">650<span
style=""> </span>7 $a
Verse drama, Thai $2 fast (record 656; 500 note says that this is a
verse drama)<br>
<br>
There is probably no way to rectify this sort of thing in a machine
conversion but it's something that people needing to use converted MARC
record headings may need to be aware of, depending on the source of
records.<br>
</span><br>
There were a few (3) where the terminology part of a chronology/period
subdivision
seemed to make less sense as a topical heading. Example (628): <br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">18 650<span
style=""> </span>7
$a Occupation $2 fast<br>
<br>
Original heading <br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">$a
Poland $x History $y Occupation, 1939-1945.<br>
<br>
(How to distinguish for a searcher that this is an occupation of a
country, not a job or career?)</span><br>
<br>
<i>2). If the topical headings have topical subdivisions, do they
appear to be properly constructed?</i><br>
<br>
Did not see any problems here.<br>
<br>
<i>3). If there are geographic headings, a. Does each one cover the
whole of the item being described,<br>
or doesone or more geographics cover only a part of the "aboutness"?</i><br>
<br>
In 179 records (47%) a geographic subdivision, promoted to a geographic
heading, seemed to me to be too broad as a descriptor of the work. <br>
<br>
Example, (no. 652)<br>
<br>
Title: <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Computerized
online bibliographic searching in
ARL libraries.<br>
<br>
21 650 7 $a Online bibliographic searching $2 fast<br>
22 651 7 $a United States $2 fast<br>
23 651 7 $a Canada $2 fast<br>
<br>
Original headings<br>
<br>
21 650 0 $a Online bibliographic searching $z United States.<br>
22 650 0 $a Online bibliographic searching $z Canada.<br>
<br>
The work isn't "about" Canada or the United States, it's about
bibliographic searching that happens in those two countries. I'm
thinking about use of FAST with other schemes than MARC, for example
Dublin Core, and it seems that in
almost all cases, the geographic subdivision seems more to fit the
Dublin Core category of "Coverage" (Geographic) than "Subject".
Perhaps an argument to could be made that any activity in a country is
an aspect of the country in a sense. But I am thinking about searchers
and
how things could be sorted out for them. Someone looking for works
about Canada "in general" has a lot to sift through, but must they, in
their subject search results, get every kind of heading for things that
happen in Canada? I wonder if it would be possible to have a
distinction in MARC between converted geographic subdivisions headings
and assigned geographic headings, to allow more flexibility.<br>
<br>
A few more examples, among many, can be found in records 512, 686,
688, 694... <br>
</span><br>
A smaller but similar category (10 records) are headings that
started out as a geographic heading with topical or form subdivision,
where the
geographic heading seems too broad to describe the whole work without
its subdivision. Some of these had the
subdivisions $x Antiquities or $x Economic policy, but here is a
different example (record 785)<br>
<br>
17 610 27 $a Univerzitnâa kniéznica v Bratislave $2 fast<br>
18 651 7 $a Slovakia $2 fast<br>
19 655 7 $a Bibliography $v Catalogs $2 fast<br>
20 655 7 $a Catalogs $2 fast<br>
<br>
original headings<br>
<br>
17 651 0 $a Slovakia $v Bibliography $v Catalogs.<br>
18 610 20 $a Univerzitnâa kniéznica v Bratislave $v Catalogs.<br>
<br>
Is the work "about" Slovakia?<br>
<br>
<i> b. Do the geographic headings make sense as constructed in indirect
order?</i><br>
<br>
Did not see a problem with this.<br>
<br>
<i>4). If there are personal and/or corporate names, a. Do they seem
to represent the "aboutness" of the item? <br>
</i><br>
Yes<i><br>
<br>
b. Is the entire item about the person or corporate body, or just a
part of the item? <br>
<br>
</i>Entire item, for the most part<i><br>
<br>
c. Do topical subjects associated with the person or corporate body
(that would have been subdivisions following the name)<br>
make sense by themselves?</i><br>
<br>
Noticed three instances in the sample where the subdivision separated
from the heading didn't make as much sense:<br>
<br>
Family (personal names, records 640 and 801) <br>
Evaluation (corporate body, record 526)<br>
<br>
<i>5). If there are form or genre headings, a. Does each one represent
the whole of the item being described, or does one or more form/genre
heading apply to only a portion of the item? </i> <br>
<br>
There was one instance where sets of different headings had different
subfield v form subdivisions that were converted (Record 454). The
resulting form/genre headings probably both applied to the work as a
whole, but may have applied to only parts of the work - couldn't
examine it.<br>
<br>
30 655 7 $a Union lists (Library catalogs) $2 fast<br>
31 655 7 $a Directories $2 fast<br>
<br>
from title: Râepertoire des dossiers documentaires traitant de l'art
et de<br>
l'architecture dans les râegions reprâesentâees áa la section ARLIS MOQ
= $b Directory of<br>
vertical file collections on art and architecture represented by ARLIS
MOQ.<br>
Selected subjects;<br>
<br>
23 650 0 $a Art, Canadian $v Bibliography $v Union lists.<br>
28 650 0 $a Art libraries $z Canada $v Directories.<br>
<br>
I don't see this as a problem even if the form/genre headings only
apply to part of the work.<br>
<br>
<i>b. Is the term that is coded as form/genre truly representative of
the form of the item, or is the item "about" that form/genre concept?</i><br>
<br>
Am not sure about the conversion of topical subdivision History to
form/genre heading. Would like to hear the pros and cons. It seemed
strange to me when first encountered. Would a user looking for the
history of a place or topic be more likely to search under subject or
form/genre? <br>
<br>
However, if "History" is to be form/genre, it seems that the FAST
topical subdivision "History and criticism" ought to be a form/genre
heading as well. And the converted name topical subdivision, topical
heading "Criticism and interpretation" could be a form/genre as well -
simply applying the "isness vs. aboutness" test (which may be
oversimplifying!).<br>
<br>
There was a topical subdivision that stayed that way but appeared to
describe the form/genre: Liturgy (record 706), but wholesale
conversion of these might be a problem.<br>
<br>
There were a couple of records with "Early works" converted from
subfield v to Form/Genre heading; the term seems odd divorced from its
heading. <br>
<br>
I think the oddness of 655 _ 7 $a Catalogs $v Exhibition catalogs $2
fast has already been mentioned. Why not 655 _7 Exhibition catalogs?<br>
<br>
<i>6).If there are chronological headings, do the time periods make
sense for the item being described? (Given the way these examples will
be created, i.e., deconstructing LCSH, the chronological headings will<br>
represent LCSH time periods, not the exact period covered by the item
as FAST is intended to do; so I'm not sure what we can evaluate here.)<br>
<br>
</i>Yes, in some cases it was apparent that the time period actually
covered by the work, judging from the title and notes, was much shorter
than the chronological range converted from the LCSH. I noticed 22
definite cases and possibly 8 more that couldn't be fully evaluated
because records were in a language I don't read. A good example is in
record 726 where the title gives coverage dates of 1754-1793 but the
heading is <span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">648<span
style=""> </span>7 $a
1700 - 1799 $2 fast</span><br>
<br>
I think it's something to be aware of if people need to use converted
headings, but see no reason that people applying FAST on its own should
be bounded at all by the LCSH rules for chronological subdivisions.<br>
<i><br>
</i>I also noticed some oddities of conversion:<br>
<br>
Record 599 is an example with <span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">655<span
style=""> </span>7 $a
Personal narratives $v Soviet $2 fast ; this was converted from the
authorized form of subdivision, </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">$v Personal
narratives, Soviet. </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Use of
subfield 655 subfield v for an element that's not " form" seems odd
(granted that FAST subfielding rules could be different from MARC, but
are they?), and why not place the whole subdivision in subfield a? I
noticed 3 of these. <br>
<br>
Some of these conversions also seemed to mangle the string, e.g. in
record 628:<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">original
heading 650<span style=""> </span>0 $a World War, 1939-1945 $v
Personal
narratives, <b style="">French<br>
</b>FAST heading </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">655<span
style=""> </span>7 $a
Personal narratives $v <b style="">Georgian</b></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">(nothing
about the record suggests anything to do with Georgia). <br>
<br>
Also record 792, Personal narratives, <b>Canadian</b> becomes Personal
narratives $v <b>Catalan</b>!<br>
<br>
Noticed a couple of times that the personal name subdivision $v Themes,
motives etc. didn't get converted to anything (example, record 569)<br>
<br>
Record 696, important place name qualifier lost:<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">$z
Korea (South)</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br>
became </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">20 651<span
style=""> </span>7
$a Korea $2 fast<br>
<br>
Record 765, in the conversion of </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br>
17 650<span style=""> </span>0
$a Russian language $v Dictionaries $x English.<br>
<br>
"English" is not represented in FAST headings. Also in record 782:<br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">18
651<span style=""> </span>0
$a China $x Civilization $v Dictionaries $x Chinese.<br>
"Chinese" not represented in FAST headings. So this seems to be a
choice - because subfield x follows v? Would this be possible:<br>
<br>
655 7 $a Dictionaries, Chinese $2 fast ?<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br>
</span>Record 629, extra space in <span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">18 650<span
style=""> </span>7
$a Political and social views of a<span style="">
</span>person $2 fast (between a and person).</span><br>
<br>
46 (12.1%) of my records had no change at all to the headings, and 41
(10.8%) had conversions with no problem.<br>
<br>
Very interesting exercise!<br>
<br>
Laura <br>
<span class="moz-txt-tag">-- <br>
</span>Laura Akerman, Technology and Metadata Librarian
<br>
Robert W. Woodruff Library, Room 128
<br>
Emory University
<br>
Atlanta, Ga. 30322
<br>
ph: (404) 727-6888 / email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:liblna@emory.edu">liblna@emory.edu</a></font></small>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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