Name and subject authority

1. Name and subject authority One link in the integration of data G. WakurayaWanjohi 18 December 2010

2. QUESTIONS • What is the percentage of original cataloguing you do in your library? • What have you learned about the establishment of authority records in your course work at college/university? • Has anyone of you ever heard about the book Names of persons?

3. A QUOTATION FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (U of T) MAGAZINE (2005) The Internet revolution comes knocking U of T has already developed a portal to make university libraries more accessible. Administered by U of T for the entire province, the Ontario Scholars portal enables students and faculty from across Ontario to find any of the 30 million books in Ontario’s university libraries or seven million articles from the nearly 5,000 journals available electronically. By way of an online search, students can have a journal article sent to their desktop or request a book through an interlibrary loan.

4. Since 2002, the Ontario Scholars Portal has delivered more than nine million articles to 400,000 users. It has revolutionized both the temporal and spatial use of libraries – with students “using” the libraries from home, often after “closing”. The Portal has also enabled smaller universities to plug into U of T Libraries - the fourth largest university library system in North America – and has put U of T on the leading edge of the delivery of digital information. Source: University of Toronto Magazine Spring 2005

5. How is the University of Toronto able to accomplish this feat? Two main reasons • Cooperation • Adherence to standards

6. The situation in Kenya At present Kenya does not have an integrated national bibliographic network. This has led to a number of disadvantages: • There is no body to set standards for cataloguing in the country; • There is no system for checking if an item published in Kenya (and not found in the LC database) has already been catalogued by another Kenyan library.

7. 3. There is no way to consult with others about cataloguing, classification and subject indexing problems; 4. There is no uniformity in classification of Kenyan materials; 5. There is no national system of authority for Kenyan names; 6. The Kenya National Bibliography cannot be an authority in the absence of standards;

8. 7. Complete coverage of all Kenyan materials cannot be assured in the absence of a national bibliographic network; 8. Integration of data is impossible without agreement on standards.

9. Name authority records We need name authority records, in order to: • Have uniformity of entry in one’s databases; • Keep track of name changes and of variant forms of names; • Make possible the integration of data when one is part of a system.

10. Practice of authority work in Kenya • KNLS • University of Nairobi

11. Difficulties in establishing African names • There are different practices for different languages; • There is no uniformity even within one language; • There are few local authorities for establishing names.

12. QUESTIONS • Form of entry for African names Some examples? • Guidelines – which?

13. Subject descriptors Use of LC subject headings Comments?

14. PROBLEMS WITH LC SUBJECT HEADINGS One.The subject headings were originally intended for use in manual catalogues when a system of pre-coordinate indexing was called for. The subjects are therefore arranged in a hierarchical system: main headings with subdivisions and a subsystem of arranging subjects under countries. For the same reason, in many cases, natural language is not used as is evident in subject headings like Proverbs, African, etc.

15. Two. The Library of Congress is a multi-million volume library. Therefore, in addition to very general subject headings, there is a vast system of very specific subject headings, resulting in an enormous total number of headings: the printed subject headings now consist of five very bulky volumes.

16. DISADVANTAGES OF USING LC SUBJECT HEADINGS 1. The use of inverted headings for phrases like Proverbs, African rather than the more natural African proverbs; 2. One may end up with too many subject descriptors for relatively small databases or the use of very specific subject descriptors when a more general term would be more appropriate in the library's context.

17. 3. For computerized libraries, the use of the majority of subdivisions is in many cases outdated since it can be substituted by using subject descriptors in combination; 4. For those used to British rather than American English, the use of American terms rather than British terms presents problems in searching.

18. 5. The use of American English in spelling for people used to UK English is another difficulty; 6. African (or Kenyan) concepts are not catered for.

19. FOR DISCUSSION • Use of essential subdivisions, e.g. under voluminous authors like Shakespeare, under uniform titles like Bible. • Free-floating subdivisions like: Evaluation Environmental aspects

20. NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHIC NETWORK REQUIREMENTS • Training of cataloguers to the highest international standards; • Agreement on lead organizations for cataloguing Kenyan material in the various subject areas; • Agreement on depth of cataloguing for various categories of materials; • Agreement on broad subject descriptors; • Agreement on software for the system.

21. Objectives of a National Bibliographic Network 1. To catalogue an item (book, serial, audiovisual or electronic file) only once, using internationally accepted bibliographic standards; 2. To make this cataloguing record widely available; 3. To indicate the location of the catalogued item.