MARCIVE - An Overview

Part one of an authority workshop presented September 2001 by:

Jenifer Marquardt

Assistant Authorities Librarian

University of Georgia

What does MARCIVE do?

1. Receives your bibliographic records2. Processes them according to the

Ongoing Authorities Profile you established

3. Delivers to you any authority records they have not sent you in the past that you need to have based on bib. records just processed

What does MARCIVE do?

4. Sends you reports of the results of bibliographic record processing

5. Sends you changed authority records if they have sent you the original authority record (Notification Service)

6. Responds promptly if you have questions

What reports? Full statistical report provided free Optional reports – you make choice

each year Unrecognized main headings Unrecognized geographic subdivisions Multiple matches Heading activity report Verified without change All authority records provided

Let’s take a look at each type of report Full Statistical Report – called MARCIVE Bibliographic Authority

Control Statistics Useful to see:

what processing is being done what types of headings are being

used what areas might be problems

Includes basic statistics

Also very specific statistical categories such as:

Another category

Also includes code list of type of correction made seen in the Heading correction activity report

EXAMPLES: CN- The original tag identifier code was

corrected to direct order CORPORATE name [X10(2)].

D - The $d subfield (birth/death date) in a personal name was verified or corrected.

PS- The original tag identifier code was corrected to a PERSONAL surname [X00(1)].

$t- An initial article has been removed from a title ($t subfield).

Unrecognized main headings These headings are not necessarily

wrong – just no authority record exists A lot of authors are not established – or at

least, they are not established at the time you and MARCIVE process their first work

Set priorities If a 650 is listed, for example, it is very

often wrong

System Number (035a)

Tag and Indicator

s

Heading If you print this report, use landscape setting.

Year of pub.

Lets look at some specific lines Uniform titles often do not have

authority records established for them

Author headings – 100, 110, 111, 600, 610, 611, 700, 710 & 711s

Many authors and corporate bodies are not in the authority file when processed

Good headings to postpone fixing or reviewing – give time for heading to be established in the authority file.

Subjects (other than 600s, 610s & 630s) These are almost always true

errors Should be a high priority

Series headings – 400, 410, 411, 440, 800, 810, 811 & 830 These are very often true problems

as well for us, as we have two folks trained to establish series in the national file

810 1b A^Germany (Democratic Republic, 1949-)^B^Mecklenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv.^T^Verèoffentlichung

Unrecognized Geographic Subdivisions Report Most of the entries in the report are not

problems. They arise because the form in the authority record does not match the usage in the bibliographic record 650s

Example:

151 in authority record has: Laredo (Tex.)650 would present that as: |z Texas |z Laredo

Other Non-Problems The terms “Metropolitan Area,”

“Region,” and “Suburban Area” can be added to geographic headings. There does not have to be an authority record, and there often is not.

Common Problems in the Unrecognized Geo. Subd. Rpt. Non-geographic information

appears in delimiter z that should be in a different subfield (v, x, y) |z Description and travel |z Membership |z Statistics |z Public opinion |z 20th century

Common problems continued Geographic information has simple

misspelling |z Indua |z Great Gritain |z Swden |z Developing countreis

Other less common problems Delimiter symbol missing

|z Georgia x History

Spacing |zSanta Cruz

View of a typical report page

Multiple Matches Report This report shows headings which

MARCIVE did not change because there were multiple headings which the programming thought might match

This is another report for which you should choose your landscape printing option

A typical page

What to do? Search OCLC Your heading may not have a

matching authority record There are often more possibilities

than those listed on the report For instance, Braun, Otto, |d 1897-

1918 could have been set up without dates at all, using a fuller form of name, etc. For example: Braun, Otto Rudolf

Heading Activity Report This report shows what the

heading was and what it was changed to.

It can also show a code (explained in the statistical report) that tells what type of action was taken to correct the heading

700 10 |a Mazoyer, Aelis changed to: Mazoyer, Emelie, |d 1887-1965

This time a code is present 110 10 |a Canadian Music Centre.

CN |a Canadian Music Centre

CN- The original tag identifier code was corrected to direct order CORPORATE name [X10(2)].

Another coded change 650 0 |a Ethnology |z Hong Kong.

Z |a Ethnology |z China |z Hong Kong.

Z - For subject headings, a geographic subdivision ($z subfield) was corrected.

Useful Report? This might be a useful report to

monitor the changes MARCIVE is making.

To see what sorts of errors you are making as a cataloger

We used at first to see what MARCIVE did and did not do, but with plenty of real problems to work on we decided to drop this report after the first year.

Verified Without Change Report This lists headings MARCIVE was

successfully able to match against the LC authority file.

No problems in this report, so not very useful

All authority records report This report just literally duplicates

each authority record provided.

Notification report This is very similar – lists the

authority records supplied because of a change.

It has the new authority record and the record it replaces.

You can pick up some important info. here if you don’t get it reported elsewhere – cancelled records – but a tedious method to use.

One problem that MARCIVE can’t really help us on is: Gap records – those authority records which

are newly created but not yet in MARCIVE’s file. They get LC’s authority file weekly. Takes LC a while to pick up new authority

records from OCLC, RLIN. If you or another NACO library create a heading,

it will commonly not get to MARCIVE for 3 weeks This means that MARCIVE might resolve the

heading on your bibliographic record incorrectly – changing it to match something else in the file

What to do? Can delay sending records to MARCIVE.

We are doing that with one special project group that is creating and revising many, many headings

Can check back on headings you create to see that they were resolved correctly and correct those that were not

Not much to do for headings that other Libraries created and you don’t know about

How do I access the reports? Sent electronically as related files

when the bibliographic records are returned.

UGA has password protected web access – really easy to go in and view or print what you need

If you don’t have easy access, you can ask your server administrator to set something similar up

Here is a typical notification

Here is our access

Related files – reports of bibliographic file processing

Related, related 2, related3, etc… Each a different type

Full statistical reports

Unrecognized main headings

reports

Example report

Monthly reports also have action taken during bulk load

Files under monthly report

Error file will hold any authority record that Voyager was not able to load due to incorrect formatting - usually two fields normalize the same and create internal conflict

Discard file holds records that could not be added, merged, or replaced because there were multiple records above the replace threshold or the warning threshold

UGALALL is the complete file of authority records loaded

The log file shows the results of the authority file load. At the end is this statistical compilation.

The delete file shows cancelled authority records. These records could not be loaded into GIL and are dumped into one file that makes it easy to find them.

Documentation for GIL Bulkimport file descriptions are in

the Technical manual – part named “Additional Files” (for Voyager 2000.1 they begin on page 59)