[Yulcat-l] FW: OFFICIAL: OCLC is enriching WorldCat records with FAST headings

[Arakawa, Steven]

A number of you have noted the presence of FAST headings in cataloging copy. For background, see the announcement from OCLC included at the end of this message. For YUL, per the SACO Committee:


1.       Retain FAST headings in cataloging copy; please do not delete them from OCLC records.

2.       There are no immediate plans to add FAST headings to original cataloging records.

3.       At this time, retention of other non-LCSH 6xxs is still under discussion, so continue to remove them from cataloging copy.

4.       Do not remove non-LCSH 6xxs from records cataloged by YUL.

Records returned from MARS/Backstage will retain FAST headings. Backstage will not process the headings and will not send us authority records for FAST terms.
FAST headings will appear in bib records as either 650, 651 _7 [topical and geographic terms] $2 fast, or, 648 07 or 17 [chronological heading] $2 fast.

FAST Examples in Orbis:

a.       648 example: Influence of the fiscal system on income distribution in regions and small areas.

b.      650 _7 and 651 _7 example: China-Saudi Arabia relations, 1990-2012.

If you want to see more, try a keyword or builder search on OCLCF in Staff Orbis; however, in many of the cataloged records with OCLCF in 040, staff have removed the FAST headings.

Steven Arakawa
Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation
Catalog & Metada Services
Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University
P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240
(203) 432-8286 steven.arakawa at yale.edu<mailto:steven.arakawa at yale.edu>



From: OnLine Audiovisual Catalogers electronic discussion list. [mailto:OLAC-L at OCLC.ORG] On Behalf Of Weitz,Jay
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 8:50 AM
To: OLAC-L at OCLC.ORG
Subject: [OLAC-L] OFFICIAL: OCLC is enriching WorldCat records with FAST headings

OCLC is systematically adding FAST headings to selected WorldCat records.

This message provides a brief description of the FAST enrichment activity.

For more detailed information, please see information posted at the URL listed below (“More detailed information about this enrichment….”)

What is FAST?

FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) is a fully enumerative faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), a widely-used subject-access vocabulary published and maintained by the Library of Congress. The development of FAST has been a collaboration of OCLC and the Library of Congress with advice from members of the ALCTS/SAC/Subcommittee on FAST.


Enriching WorldCat records with FAST headings

Beginning in September 2013, OCLC is systematically adding FAST headings to WorldCat bibliographic records. The records affected will already have LCSH assigned, and the routines will be applied only to records that are attributed as being English-language-of-cataloging.

FAST-enriched WorldCat records will include “OCLCF” in the MARC 040 subfield “d” (ǂd), have one or  –- more likely -- several 6xx fields with a second indicator of “7” and subfield “2” (ǂ2) that contains the string, “fast.” Additionally, subfield “zero” (ǂ0) will be present in the machine-process-added FAST headings -- this provides the FAST authority record number.

The processes performing this FAST enrichment work in WorldCat will run as background processes and should not adversely impact system performance. OCLC will initially prioritize the enriching records originally created by the Library of Congress and then will apply the FAST enrichment process to records from other sources. For the initial run, records will be excluded from FAST enrichment until at least six months from date of entry have elapsed.


Why is OCLC systematically adding FAST to WorldCat Records?

OCLC Research and other agencies  have been experimenting with using FAST for a variety of purposes and in a range of application for many years. FAST has repeatedly proven itself to be remarkably effective for clustering, indexing, analysis, and navigation of WorldCat data.

The FAST headings have been drawn from a non-production, enriched copy of WorldCat maintained by OCLC Research. And as such, these FAST enrichments have not been easily available to many OCLC applications and also to interested third parties. This enrichment of WorldCat will permit more applications and agencies to take advantage of FAST.

Going forward OCLC has plans to make FAST available in its cataloging tools. In particular, a FAST assignment feature will be released in early 2014 in an updated version of OCLC WorldShare Metadata Record Manager, which is currently available to WMS libraries and will be available to all cataloging subscribers in the future.


More information:

More detailed information about this enrichment of WorldCat is available here: http://www.oclc.org/en-US/news/announcements/2013/enriching-worldcat-with-fast.html

Please contact OCLC-Support at  support at oclc.org<mailto:support at oclc.org<mailto:support at oclc.org%3cmailto:support at oclc.org>> with any questions or concerns related to this announcement.


Eric Childress
OCLC Research
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