Building an improved resource discovery experience for users:

1. Building an improved resource discovery experience for users: a cataloger’s experience and perspective CEAL Conference Toronto, Canada, March, 2012 Jia Xu The University of Iowa

2. Overview • To build an improved resource discovery experience for users, an important cataloging procedure is to achieve consistency of bibliographic headings • The projects/tasks aiming to achieve consistency of bibliographic headings within the records for Chinese videos and films • Update personal and corporate name headings • Test Aleph functionality on the automatic updating of bibliographic headings • Examine inconsistency of existing genre/form headings • What we have achieved and learned

3. Heading Information? Aleph Authors index search: “Meng, Jinghui”: the results before and after updating the bibliographic heading. “Heading Information” is missing.

4. The project to update personal name and corporate name headings • Technical reasons to update bibliographic name headings • There had been an increasing number of bibliographic name headings within the existing records that did not match the authorized headings • Newly established authorized headings • Updated authorized headings • Formerly undifferentiated authorized headings • Aleph functionality has not been robust enough to support the automatic updating of headings within bibliographic records

5. The project to update personal name and corporate name headings • Steps toward consistency of bibliographic name headings • Verify the bibliographic heading against the authorized heading • Li, Yu, 1973- (李玉, drt, aus, 红颜, 苹果) • Establish and/or update name authority records • Song, Jia, 1962- (宋佳, act, 淘金王, 落山风, 寡妇十日谈) • Song, Jia, 1980- (宋佳, act, 好奇害死猫,闯关东, 赤壁) • Yu, Faye, 1971- (俞飞鸿, act, 牵手, 千年敬祈) • Chao, Winston (赵文瑄, act, 饮食男女, 红玫瑰白玫瑰) • Chu, Chunqiu, 1959- (pen name, 楚春秋, real name, 徐贵祥, aut, 弹道无痕, 历史的天空) • Keep bibliographic headings updated • Updating bibliographic headings requires ongoing efforts and enhanced system functionality

6. Test Aleph functionality on the automatic updating of bibliographic headings • OCLC Closed Dates in Authority Records http://www.oclc.org/rss/feeds/authorityrecords/default.htm (Including CJK authority records) • Special Aleph fields in authority records • UPD: code: Y or N, determining whether or not to update the bibliographic records automatically • COR: a see reference for the original authorized heading • Identified system problems • Does not link the authority record to the bibliographic record(s) in some cases • Updates the paired bibliographic headings to the authorized form • Changes the order of subfield 6

7. ??? ???: Missing link between the authority and bibliographic records

8. Aleph updated the bibliographic heading from “Engle, Paul, 1908-” to “Engle, Paul, 1908-1991” successfully.

9. A test result: if changing UPD code from N to Y in the authority record, Aleph updates the paired fields and moves subfield 6 to the end of the 100 fields.

10. Examine inconsistency of genre/form headings • Local policy on the assignment of genre/form terms for foreign films had been changed over the past ten years • Geographic subdivision for “country of production” • Provide the information in 500 field --> Add the subdivision to five genre/form headings --> Add the subdivision to topical heading “Foreign films” --> No longer subdivide genre/form headings geographically • “Foreign films” and “Foreign television programs” • Assign the headings for foreign films and TV programs --> Do not use the terms (for they are no longer LCGFT terms, but LCSH headings) • Source thesauri • LCSH --> GSAFD and LCSH --> LCSH -->LCGFT • MARC coding • 650 --> 655 --> 650 and 655 --> 655

13. What we have achieved • Updated 450 personal and corporate name bibliographic headings by matching them with the authorized headings within 1500 records for Chinese videos and films; created and updated 70 personal and corporate name authority records • Tested how Aleph functions to automatically update name headings (Latin and non-Latin names) in 100s, 600s, 700s, 800s; also, subject headings in 650s • Examined inconsistency of existing genre/form headings, the first step leading to a potential future project, to fix inconsistency of genre/form headings within existing records for the libraries’ moving image collection

14. What we have learned • It is important to look at bibliographic data from user’s perspective • Authority control procedures are the key steps to support user tasks • The system-generated link between bibliographic and authority records is crucial to control bibliographic headings and to direct users to authorized heading information • The verification procedure is a key step to match the bibliographic heading against established authorized heading • Establishing and updating authority records aids catalogers to identify, contextualize, justify the entity; the authority data then aids users to identify, select the entity • Achieving consistency of bibliographic headings requires ongoing efforts and enhanced system functionality • Must prepare to transition to implementation of RDA, a standard designed to focus attention on fulfilling user tasks

15. Thank you! • Questions? • Jia Xu (徐佳) • East Asian Cataloging Librarian • The University of Iowa Libraries • Phone: (319)335-5029 • E-mail: jia-xu@uiowa.edu