[Koha] [ByWater Partners] MARC field and heading validation with Koha

[Reichert, Kumiko]

Thanks, Heather and Joy, for excellent observations.  The story with my library is that the authority database currently is in a bad shape since it has not been through any vendor or in-house maintenance for years.  I am planning to have a vendor for the authority and bib maintenance next year.  After it is done, I would like to create a local workflow in terms of heading-control.


Karen and Dani showed me $9 as well as Tag Editor in the basic view.  I also learned the authority linker.  I am interested in using the linker and retrieve a list of unlinked headings for in-house maintenance as well as NACO contribution.  Joy's broader-heading option sounds useful for me to consider utilizing, too.


Thanks for your input!  I am looking forward to learning these things and Koha in general better.


Sincerely,

Kumiko


Kumiko Reichert

Metadata and Cataloging Librarian

Maxwell Library

Bridgewater State University

10 Shaw Road

Bridgewater, MA 02325

kumiko.reichert at bridgew.edu<mailto:kreichert at bridgew.edu>

508-531-2665

________________________________
From: Joy Nelson <joy at bywatersolutions.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 6, 2017 10:32:09 AM
To: Hernandez, Heather
Cc: Reichert, Kumiko; koha at lists.katipo.co.nz; ByWater Partners
Subject: Re: [ByWater Partners] [Koha] MARC field and heading validation with Koha

As a side note to Heather's excellent synopsis, I'd like to add something.  If you choose to use the authority/bib linker cronjob you have the option to match to 'broader headings'.  So in the example Heather gave, using the automated linking to authority records with a 'broader heading' preference you would match a bib with Women Sailors -- Fiction to the authority record of Women sailors.

Thanks!
joy

*******************************
this heading in a bib record will validate & link to an authority record (which one can see with the $9):
650 _ 0 $a Women sailors. $9 17788

But this heading will not validate & link (so lacks the $9), because authority records are not created with headings with free-floating subdivisions such as "$v Fiction:"
650 _ 0 ‡aWomen sailors‡vFiction.
********************************


On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Hernandez, Heather <heather_hernandez at nps.gov<mailto:heather_hernandez at nps.gov>> wrote:
Hi, Kumiko--

I'm not sure our workflow would be applicable since we're a very specialized museum library, but maybe you'll get some ideas?

We lacked a lot of authority capabilities in our previous catalog software (Athena), so our headings were & are pretty messy.  I'm in the middle of a project to clean up the authority file and then the remaining authority controlled fields in the bib records.  So, that said:

I catalog on OCLC (Connexion Client) but am experimenting with creating original records in Koha with the Advanced Editor.  I manually search every single authority controlled field in the Koha authority file, and download new authority records from OCLC (or for locally created name, series, etc., records, key them very laboriously into Koha since there's no Advanced Editor for authority records--I so dearly hope one is developed!).

If I have reason to substantially edit a bib record, I'll manually search all the authority controlled fields that lack a $9 authority record link--I have to do this manually because our Koha installation doesn't validate any headings that have subfields that are not present in an authority record--that is, only authority-controlled bib fields that match every, single subfield in the authority record will validate & link.  So, e.g., in our catalog, this heading in a bib record will validate & link to an authority record (which one can see with the $9):
650 _ 0 $a Women sailors. $9 17788

But this heading will not validate & link (so lacks the $9), because authority records are not created with headings with free-floating subdivisions such as "$v Fiction:"
650 _ 0 ‡aWomen sailors‡vFiction.

So with us, authority control is still a human function.  We thought briefly about using a vendor for the initial cleanup (I've had this done at previous jobs & it's worked very well), but we lack the funds for such a project.

One feature that is beautiful is that *if* headings are linked to an authority record, once the authority record is edited or overlaid with a newer imported version, the linked headings are pretty instantly changed.  Then it's just a matter of some searching & manual editing to update the headings that aren't linked because they have, e.g., free-floating subdivisions.  Or typos...sigh...:)

Our catalog is hosted and supported by ByWater & we've chatted a bit about how we might experiment with some changes that might improve heading linking, but haven't yet got beyond that--we have yet to upgrade beyond 17.05, so have yet to implement ElasticSearch which, I imagine, might impact indexing/linking.

Hope this is helpful!  Cheerio,
h2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heather Hernandez
Technical Services Librarian
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center
2 Marina Blvd., Bldg. E, 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA  94123-1284
415-561-7032, heather_hernandez at nps.gov<mailto:heather_hernandez at nps.gov>
https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/research-center.htm

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