[SAC-FAST] Re: SAC Subcommittee on FAST

[O'Neill,Ed]

Sherman,

We are still working our through some of these questions--Tomorrow's
answer may be different than today's.  That said, other members of the
FAST may differ from my answer.

For manually assigned headings, the actual date "1985-1995" would be
used.  Because of the faceting, it is very difficult to pick the dates
from the deconstructed LCSH period subfields.

Regarding the second question, when converting from LCSH, we convert to
the shortest period covering both periods, 1800-1929 for the Picasso
example. "1900-1919" is included even thought that period in not
relevant. When manually assigned, it would be up to the cataloger to
decide if both periods are important. The good news is that these
examples are very rare--the bad news is that FAST doesn't deal with them
well.  We made an intentional decision to keep FAST simple which works
well most of the time, but not always.  Having a single numeric date
range does simply retrieval.

Thanks, Ed 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sherman Clarke [mailto:sherman.clarke at nyu.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:16 PM
To: O'Neill,Ed
Cc: SAC-FAST at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: RE: [SAC-FAST] Re: SAC Subcommittee on FAST

Ed,
If the book on rock music covers 1985 to 1995, would the "right" FAST 
chronological heading be "1985-1995"? Or do you have to pick from 
deconstructed $y subfields?

Is the restriction on one period heading related to a particular topic 
or to the whole record? Let's say our item is about 19th century 
African sculpture and the influence on Picasso in the 1920s. Or a 
comparison of the prehistoric Venus of Willendorf and modern feminist 
renditions of the earth mother?

Thanks.
Sherman

----- Original Message -----
From: "O'Neill,Ed" <oneill at oclc.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 3:40 pm
Subject: RE: [SAC-FAST] Re: SAC Subcommittee on FAST

> Arlene is correct, FAST normally uses exact periods.  However, 
> when the
> periods are derived from LCSH, that (usually longer) period is used
> since more specific dates are not available.  In addition, FAST only
> permits one period headings per record, so that multiple LCSH periods
> are combined.  For example (LCCN: 2000-344708) the LCSH headings:
> 
> 	Rock Music $y 1981-1990
> and   Rock Music $y 1991-2000
> 
> convert to the single FAST period
> 
> 	1981 - 2000
> 
> Multiple periods in LSCH are relatively rare and almost always 
> representeither contiguous or overlapping periods.   
> 
> Ed
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sac-fast-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
> [mailto:sac-fast-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Arlene Taylor
> Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 11:46 AM
> To: Sherman Clarke
> Cc: SAC-FAST at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [SAC-FAST] Re: SAC Subcommittee on FAST
> 
> It is my understanding that FAST *does* use exact time periods.  
> That'swhy I wrote what I did.  The examples we'll be looking at 
> that Ed
> creates
> for us at OCLC will deconstruct LCSH into FAST headings.  
> Therefore, the
> chronological headings will be LCSH time periods.  But if a person
> created
> FAST headings for the item from scratch, the time periods would be 
> exactcoverage of the item being described.  So, I'm asking if we 
> can evaluate
> this part of the sample that Ed is going to create for us.  
> 
> --Arlene
> 
> On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Sherman Clarke wrote:
> 
> > > 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
> > > 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.)
> > 
> > Since the chronological headings could not be reconstructed with 
> their
> > topic, we should perhaps consider recommending that FAST would 
> fit 
> > better if they moved to giving the exact period covered by the 
> item, 
> > rather than fussing with the pre-existing chronological 
> subdivisions. 
> > This does invite more variety in chronological subdivisions and 
> it 
> > would be good to have indexing that would be smart about time 
> periods.
> > For example, it would find an item with "1913-1922" if you 
> searched 
> > 1910s or 1920s or 20th century or pre-1945.
> > 
> > Sherman
> >