[yul-naco] OCLC clean up of the NACO file

[Steven Arakawa]

In case you haven't seen this announcement--be sure you're using the 
correct characters.

--Steven

Message-ID:  <20080208T140525Z_A70D000F0000 at loc.gov>
Date:         Fri, 8 Feb 2008 14:05:25 -0500
Reply-To: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <PCCLIST at loc.gov>
Sender: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <PCCLIST at loc.gov>
From: CPSO Account <cpso at loc.gov>
Subject: Recent and pending NACO cleanup projects
Comments: To: pcclist at loc.gov
To: PCCLIST at sun8.LOC.GOV
Precedence: list


Dear PCC colleagues,

We'd like to update you on a few projects that have had, or will 
have, an impact on the NACO authority file.

Completed cleanup projects:

Last fall we issued announcements notifying NACO catalogers to begin 
using several new MARC characters, including the degree sign and the 
musical sharp. We also indicated that OCLC was considering automated 
means to convert earlier records that used substitutes for the degree 
sign and musical sharp. We're very pleased to announce that Robert 
Bremer of OCLC has just completed a project to convert existing NACO 
records that contained a superscript zero where a degree sign was 
intended, and to convert pound signs into musical sharps, where appropriate.

Pound sign --> Musical sharp

Robert reports that this conversion resulted in 538 changed authority 
records. Robert has also produced a list of the LCCNs of the NACO 
records where any 1XX, 4XX, or 5XX field was changed when converting 
to a musical sharp. Anyone interested in the list can contact Dave 
Reser via email to receive a copy of the list 
<mailto:(dres at loc.gov>(dres at loc.gov ).

Superscript zero --> Degree sign

Robert changed 45,433 authority records as part of this conversion-- 
the vast majority were for geographic coordinates in 670 citations on 
geographic name heading records. He also manually converted a few 
records where the change impacted the 1XX, 4XX, or 5XX (e.g., the 
musical group 98 degrees (LCCN no 99025097)).

***Because the conversion project has completed, it is now even more 
important to be using the new characters instead of the old 
substitutions-- we continue to receive several records a week with 
the incorrect characters.***

Additional cleanup projects in the planning stage:

Robert is also nearing production on two additional clean-up projects 
of the NACO file. The first is a project to add 043 and 781 fields 
(or 667 SUBJECT USAGE information) to geographic name authority 
records. This is a continuation of a project Robert ran two years ago 
that added such fields to about 80,000 name authority records. The 
continuation project will primarily impact newer geographic name 
authority records created without such fields since 2006.

The second project concerns the removal of unnecessary ending 
punctuation found in 1XX headings on older name authority records 
(generally impacts records created before a policy change in 1989 to 
exclude such punctuation). While many of these older records will 
have had ending punctuation removed as they were updated during the 
last 20 years, a number of records remain to be fixed-- these records 
have presented vexing challenges to local systems and authority 
control vendors for many years and have been the source of many 
complaints, so it will be great to have them corrected. While some of 
the changes will be formulaic and handled quickly, others will 
require manual review at OCLC to confirm whether the removal of 
ending punctuation is appropriate.

We believe these enhancements greatly improve the automated use of 
the valuable authority data generated by PCC participants, and send 
our thanks to OCLC for taking on these improvements.

Thanks,

Dave Reser
LC CPSO


----------------------------------------------------------
Steven Arakawa
Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation
Catalog & Metadata Services, SML, Yale University
P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240
(203)432-8286 steven.arakawa at yale.edu
   
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