National Library of Medicine on Name Authority Records

NLM has decided to follow the British Library’s lead and try to avoid creating any further undifferentiated NARs for NACO, nor to add any further identities to existing NARs. If using RDA qualifiers such as period of activity or profession will allow the name to be differentiated, then these elements will be added to the heading and headings will be coded RDA. Catalogers who are not yet trained in RDA will work with or pass the work onto NLM catalogers who participated in the RDA test.

While NLM is not as optimistic as the BL that undifferentiated records can be avoided completely, NLM believes that minimizing the number of undifferentiated headings in the national authority file will be a benefit to the cataloging community.

Diane Boehr
Head of Cataloging
National Library of Medicine

from PCC list

Serials and RDA: An Ongoing Relationship

The 26th conference of the National Serials Interest Group held in St. Louis, Missouri on June 2-5, 2011, featured a full-day pre-conference entitled Serials and RDA: An Ongoing Relationship. Judith Kuhagen, Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist at the Library of Congress, presented highlights of RDA as it applies to serials. This helpful presentation linked AACR2 to RDA vocabulary and emphasized the areas of greatest concern. Concrete examples of RDA in MARC were most helpful.

Full conference proceedings are available to NASIG members via the NASIG website, or in a special issue of the Serials Librarian.

Final draft versions of KIA-KIX classification schedules available for discussion

Final draft versions of the  KIA-KIX classification schedules (Law of the Indigenous Peoples in the Americas) have been made available for review and discussion by the user community.  The drafts will remain available online until May 20, 2012.  The 26-page introduction and outline provides a thorough background to the organization of the schedules and highlights the integration of web resources into their development. Those planning to attend program J-5 at AALL in Boston (Tuesday, July 24, 2:30-3:15 PM, HCC Room 311) are encouraged to look over the drafts in advance. The drafts and introduction are available until May 20, 2012 at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/kia_draft.html.  Thanks to George Prager and Jolande Goldberg for this information.

April release brings JSC changes!

This week’s release of RDA Toolkit contained notable new content and features. The release included the first JSC update of RDA consisting of substantive changes to the cataloging instructions. These changes are the result of formal proposals from the community to the JSC. In support of the updated content, an RDA Update History section has been added to RDA Toolkit. This new section serves as an archive of the outdated versions of instructions and includes a summary of the major changes made in the update. Other enhancements include user-configurable timeout periods and revised Instruction filters. These improvements allow you to better tailor your RDA Toolkit experience to your needs.

Learn more about the April release.

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E-journal Preservation and Archiving

Due to financial and space constraints, most libraries are being forced to choose between collecting print or digital versions of many publications.  Our increased reliance on electronic resources raises serious concerns about long-term preservation of the scholarly record.  In  "E-journal Preservation and Archiving: Whether, How, Who, Which, Where, and When? Rick Anderson, Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collection in the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, wonders “how important is it that we archive all of the scholarly record?”  In the past, archiving and preservation was a serendipitous byproduct of libraries building their local collections.  Perhaps we should take a step back from automatic assumption that all of the scholarly record must be preserve.

Intro to Metadata and Taxonomies

The title to Christine Benson's Brain Traffic blog post, "An Intro to Metadata and Taxonomies" is self-explanatory. The post describes the three main types of metadata and the common types of taxonomies and how the two work together. It ends with a list of resources to explore the topic in more depth.

PCC Day One for RDA authority records announced

PCC's “Day One for RDA Authority Records" will be March 31, 2013, the same day as the “Day One” selected by LC and the other U.S. national test libraries for RDA implementation. PCC “Day One” for RDA Authority Records has been defined as: “the point after which all new authority records entering the LC/NACO Authority File must be coded RDA, and all access points on bibliographic records coded “pcc” must be RDA." Linda Barnhart, current chair of the PCC, explains that the date was selected for several reasons:

It gives a year of lead time for NACO catalogers to be trained in NACO RDA authority work (and to develop a smooth and confident local workflow for those contributions.

It provides a reasonable target date for the work that will need to take place in and with the authority file in preparation for RDA.

It gives the vendor community time to plan.

And because it matches the date for LC implementation of RDA, there wil be less confusion for catalogers in keeping dates straight.

More information about PCC Day One for authority records may be found on the PCC's RDA page: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/RDA-PCC.html.