[SAC-FAST] Summary of observations from sample records 440-820

[Laura Akerman]

  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.

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.)

The major problem I saw, with geographic subdivisions converted to 
headings that seem too broad, is  under sect. 3.

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:
  16 648  7 $a 1700 - 1799 $2 fast
  17 650  7 $a Colonies $x Administration $2 fast
  18 651  7 $a India $z Bengal $2 fast
  19 651  7 $a Asia $2 fast
  20 651  7 $a Great Britain $2 fast
  21 655  7 $a History $2 fast

Which country's colonies are being administered?  Which country's 
history is being told? Not sure how to improve this...

Original headings were

  16 651  0 $a Bengal (India) $x History $y 18th century.
  17 651  0 $a Great Britain $x Colonies $z Asia $x Administration.

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: 

650  7 $a String quartets $x Scores and parts $2 fast  (record 534)
650  7 $a Verse drama, Thai $2 fast  (record 656; 500 note says that 
this is a verse drama)

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.

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): 

18 650  7 $a Occupation $2 fast

Original heading
$a Poland $x History $y Occupation, 1939-1945.

(How to distinguish for a searcher that this is an occupation of a 
country, not a job or career?)

2). If the topical headings have topical subdivisions, do they appear to 
be properly constructed?

Did not see any problems here.

3). If there are geographic headings,   a. Does each one cover the whole 
of the item being described,
or doesone or more geographics cover only a part of the "aboutness"?

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. 

Example, (no. 652)

Title:  Computerized online bibliographic searching in ARL libraries.

  21 650  7 $a Online bibliographic searching $2 fast
  22 651  7 $a United States $2 fast
  23 651  7 $a Canada $2 fast

Original headings

  21 650  0 $a Online bibliographic searching $z United States.
  22 650  0 $a Online bibliographic searching $z Canada.

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.

A few more examples, among many, can be found in records 512, 686,  688, 
694...

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)

  17 610 27 $a Univerzitnâa kniéznica v Bratislave $2 fast
  18 651  7 $a Slovakia $2 fast
  19 655  7 $a Bibliography $v Catalogs $2 fast
  20 655  7 $a Catalogs $2 fast

original headings

  17 651  0 $a Slovakia $v Bibliography $v Catalogs.
  18 610 20 $a Univerzitnâa kniéznica v Bratislave $v Catalogs.

Is the work "about" Slovakia?

 b. Do the geographic headings make sense as constructed in indirect order?

Did not see a problem with this.

4). If there are personal and/or corporate names,  a. Do they seem to 
represent the "aboutness" of the item?

Yes

b. Is the entire item about the person or corporate body, or just a part 
of the item? 

Entire item, for the most part

c. Do topical subjects associated with the person or corporate body 
(that would have been subdivisions following the name)
make sense by themselves?

Noticed three instances in the sample where the subdivision separated 
from the heading didn't make as much sense:

Family  (personal names, records 640 and 801) 
Evaluation  (corporate body, record 526)

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? 

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.

  30 655  7 $a Union lists (Library catalogs) $2 fast
  31 655  7 $a Directories $2 fast

from title:   Râepertoire des dossiers documentaires traitant de l'art et de
l'architecture dans les râegions reprâesentâees áa la section ARLIS MOQ 
= $b Directory of
vertical file collections on art and architecture represented by ARLIS MOQ.
Selected subjects;

  23 650  0 $a Art, Canadian $v Bibliography $v Union lists.
  28 650  0 $a Art libraries $z Canada $v Directories.

I don't see this as a problem even if the form/genre headings only apply 
to part of the work.

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?

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?  

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!).

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.

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. 

I think the oddness of 655 _ 7 $a Catalogs $v Exhibition catalogs $2 
fast  has already been mentioned.   Why not 655 _7 Exhibition catalogs?

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.)

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 
648  7 $a 1700 - 1799 $2 fast

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.

I also noticed some oddities of conversion:

Record 599 is an example with 655  7 $a Personal narratives $v Soviet $2 
fast  ; this was converted from the authorized form of subdivision, $v 
Personal narratives, Soviet.  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.

Some of these conversions also seemed to mangle the string, e.g. in 
record 628:

original heading 650  0 $a World War, 1939-1945 $v Personal narratives, 
French
FAST heading  655  7 $a Personal narratives $v Georgian
(nothing about the record suggests anything to do with Georgia). 

Also record 792, Personal narratives, Canadian becomes Personal 
narratives $v Catalan!

Noticed a couple of times that the personal name subdivision $v Themes, 
motives etc. didn't get converted to anything (example, record 569)
 
Record 696, important place name qualifier lost:
$z Korea (South)           
became  20 651  7 $a Korea $2 fast

Record 765, in the conversion of
17 650  0 $a Russian language $v Dictionaries $x English.

"English" is not represented in FAST headings.   Also in record 782:

18 651  0 $a China $x Civilization $v Dictionaries $x Chinese.
"Chinese" not represented in FAST headings.  So this seems to be a 
choice - because subfield x follows v?  Would this be possible:

655  7 $a Dictionaries, Chinese $2 fast    ?

Record 629, extra space in 18 650  7 $a Political and social views of a  
person $2 fast  (between a and person).

46 (12.1%) of my records had no change at all to the headings, and 41 
(10.8%) had conversions with no problem.

Very interesting exercise!

Laura
-- 
Laura Akerman, Technology and Metadata Librarian
Robert W. Woodruff Library, Room 128
Emory University
Atlanta, Ga. 30322
ph:  (404) 727-6888  / email:  liblna at emory.edu




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/sac-fast/attachments/20050623/9e1b1877/attachment-0001.htm