Thanks for the questions. See below. Gary L. Strawn, Authorities Librarian, etc. Northwestern University Library, 1970 Campus Drive, Evanston IL 60208-2300 e-mail: mrsm...@northwestern.edu voice: 847/491-2788 fax: 847/491-8306 Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. BatchCat version: 2007.22.416
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Fox, Chris Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 11:53 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Retrospective conversion of data So the program to which you refer remains to be written at this point, which I'm supposing will be specific to your ILS and thus will not be sharable to those of us on different ILSs (I'm on Dynix Horizon). That's okay. But in an earlier post you mentioned that your catalogers "have automated tools" to do some of the RDA-ifying. Are those automated tools, again, specific to your ILS, like a global find/replace function, or something like that, similar to what others have mentioned, or are they tools that other ILSs could use? **************************** GLS: The program I have in mind to deal with abbreviations and various other RDA-izations will be set up like the program for converting headings into RDA-like form. Most users will feed the program a file of MARC records, and the program will output a file of MARC records; such users will have to figure out how to get a file of MARC records out of their system, and how to get it back in. For Voyager users, the program will have the option of reading directly from Voyager, and writing directly to Voyager. Much of the stuff that we're using now is part of the cataloger's toolkit, and that is very much Voyager-specific; sorry. (I'd love to tell you what we're doing to handle older records for opera librettos (and 700s for librettos on sound recording and score recors) but since you can't use it, I won't bother.) The idea is that over the next few months certain parts of this (such as the generation of 33X fields) will be securely tested to the extent that we can consider making those bits part of a retrospective program. **************************** Also, I looked at the list of RDA changes that Felicity Dykas is making in her catalog (very helpful list, by the way. Thanks.), which made me think of another question I have about authority records. The Phase 2 changed auth records have been input into my local catalog, but there remain headings such as the following that weren't touched by the Phase 2 records: Bible. O.T. Ecclesiastes. English; Bible. O.T. Ecclesiastes. English 1965; Bible. O.T. Ecclesiastes. English Broughton. Same is true for United States. Department of.... Headings, and their various subagencies and bureaus, and countless other name/title and subject headings/subdivisions. Are all of you doing global updates in your local system for these? How are you handling them if you're doing it in another way? How do you systematically identify these types of headings? While I am very, very thankful for the work done by many entities and individuals to make the Phase 2 records available and useable in our catalogs, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by what remains to be done on a local level. I'm concerned about the time (or lack thereof) for these kinds of update projects on top of what is already a major workload which includes me learning and applying the new RDA rules to the catalog records I am creating, rules with which I am far from comfortable. **************************** GLS: The program I mentioned for handling headings will do exactly what you seem to have in mind, if you can export/import files of MARC records. The program has been used at both Voyager and non-Voyager institutions. ****************************
