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Network Controlled Vocabularies Program [OCLC - Renovating Descriptive

Problem statement: Cultural heritage, bibliographic and archival communities use different controlled vocabularies for the resources that they manage. These controlled vocabularies may not be recognized by very diverse user communities, and ignored by large commercial information hubs and Internet search engines. Metadata needs to flow among diverse environments and reach users wherever they are. The semantic, hierarchical, and granular relationships in controlled vocabularies are often lost when retrieved outside the environment in which they were created.

Literature on authority control B+ Collocate and Disambiguate

Link to: Robert E. Wolverton, "Becoming an Authority on Authority Control: An Annotated Bibliography of Resources," Library Resources & Technical Services 50, no. 1 (2006):31-41.

Collocate and Disambiguate: Currents in authority control & authority data

Created by Lois Reibach, this blog will discuss news and trends in authority control, and new uses of authority data. Developments in controlled vocabularies will also be covered.

Terminologies Research Project -- Web Services Pilot

"Terminology Services are web-based services for controlled vocabularies. More than 4.5 million terms, 2.4 million concept links, and 2 million contextual data elements are accessible to your applications.

Each vocabulary is fully indexed and searchable. Vocabulary data is retrievable in multiple representations including the MARC authority format, used by libraries, and the SKOS Core Vocabulary used in Semantic Web applications."

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Terminology services

Lorcan describes OCLC's Terminology services:

"We have now made a set of controlled vocabularies available as web services for experiment. In effect, these services make a variety of subject vocabularies available as resources on the web in ways that individual vocabulary elements can be found, referenced and recombined in applications. They are 'webified'."

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Name authorities

Loracen writes about the problems of linking/sharing national authority files, and how the problem compounds when we add indexing to a discovery layer along with bibliographic records.

Authority Control: Definitions

Authority Control Bibliography: By Subject

Authority Control Bibliography

Non-Latin Script Data in Name Authority Records: Frequently Asked Questions

The major authority record exchange partners (British Library, Library and Archives Canada, Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, and OCLC) have developed a plan to allow the addition of non-Latin script data (also known as nonroman script data) to name authority records distributed as part of the NACO program.

The addition of non-Latin script data is scheduled to begin on July 13, 2008

Non-Latin Script Data in Name Authority Records: Frequently Asked Questions

"As previously announced, NACO libraries may begin to add non-Latin script references to name authority records beginning in June 2008. A list of Frequently Asked Questions has just been posted to provide additional information on this project at:

http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/nonlatinfaq.html "

Selling Authority Control

Slides from a 2002 presentation, but still seem relevant

Controlling names in WorldCat

Thom Hickey describes a project that is controlling millions of headings in OCLC by linking them to the NACO authority files

"Right now we are working our way through the a set of fairly easy 26 million headings, personal names that match an authority record on multiple subfields."

[I guess 'easy' is relative]

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) - Library of Congress

Encoded Archival Context: Beta

"The resources represented here are working drafts of the Ad Hoc EAC Working Group. The drafts are intended to facilitate the development activities of the Working Group and to enable anyone interested in the prototype encoding stardard for describing people to follow the development. The drafts are undergoing constant revision and thus are not to be considered normative or authoritative."

Encoded Archival Context (EAC)

Background documents on the EAC initiative

Authority Tools for Audiovisual and Music Catalogers: An Annotated List of Useful Resources

Discussion Paper on PCC Series Policies and Practices

"The PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force seeks your comments on its "Discussion Paper on PCC Series Policies and Practices"

The paper is intended to generate comments useful in making
recommendations for the future direction of PCC series practices and policies. Any individuals or organizations interested in series control policies, practices, and services are welcome to comment.

The task force membership and charges are available
from: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/archive/SeriesReviewTF.html

WorldCat Identities

The WorldCat Identities project alongs users to search and browse over 25 million personal and corporate authors. Udsing data-maing techniques, OCLC Research has pulled information on authors from the WorldCat database, including alterantive forms of names, publication timelines (by & about), genres and subjects.

2008:The Year of Non-Latin References in LC/NACO Authority Records

Karen S-Y blogs about the OCLC project to add non-roman cross references to authority records, based on data-mining of bibliographic records and the WorlCat Identities project

White Paper: Issues Related to Non-Latin Characters in Name Authority Records

"As previously announced, the Library of Congress and its major authority record exchange partners (British Library, Library and Archives Canada, National Library of Medicine, OCLC, Inc.) have agreed to a basic outline that will allow for the addition of non-Latin script references on name authority records distributed as part of the NACO program (no earlier than April 2008). Additional details about this project are contained in a White Paper drafted to frame many of the issues related to future policies for cataloger-added references to authority records that will follow an automatic pre-population of the authority records from relevant bibliographic data."

Fred 2.0 - Phase I: LC Authorities Files

This is the "read me" file about how Simon Spero harvested 6.95 million authority records from LC. Records are available in MARCXML at http://www.ibiblio.org/fred2.0/authorities/

Library of Congress Authority Files, Open!

"So begins the PDF announcing and detailing a major new development for the library-data world. Simon Spero, library-geek extraordinaire, has released a nearly complete copy of the Library of Congress Authority Files.

Get them here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/fred2.0/authorities/

Simon assembled the files, available in MarcXML, by querying the Library of Congress' Authorities website one-by-one over months. He's a patient man."

Find Authority Records [OCLC]

Searching instructions for OCLC authority files

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Names, names, names, .....

Lorcan comments on the VIAF (the Virtual International Authority File)

"Longer term, the future of authority control is interesting. Typically, the files will contain names associated with materials catalogued. Now, this is much better than not having any files, however, this will increasingly seem like a rather arbitrary slice of names. Think of what is not included: people who have only published in articles or people who have only deposited stuff in archives, for example."

Announcement on non-Latin characters in name authority records

PeopleFinders

Find Anyone, Anywhere
PeopleFinders.com master database searches dozens of databases with billions of records to provide you with possible current contact information for the person you are searching for. It is always free to search. You can also perform a people search on yourself. S

Our people search reports may contain:
• Full name (including married names,
aliases and a.k.a's when available)
• Date of birth (as reported)
• Address
• Phone number

PublicRecordsNow

With our Advanced People Search, you can search through tens of billions of public records from multiple sources. Includes current and up to 25 years of past information.

Results may include:
* Full Name
* Date of Birth
* Relatives Names
* Address
* Phone Number
* Neighbors

Genre/Form Authority Records

Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Service will begin to issue genre/form authority records (MARC 21 tag 155) no earlier than September 3, 2007

Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) - IV. Division of Bibliographic Control

The IFLA Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records is pleased to announce that a 2nd draft of "Functional Requirements for Authority Data" (previously titled "Functional Requirements for Authority Records") is now available for worldwide review. This draft, updated in response to comments received during the previous review, is on the IFLA web site at http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/wg-franar.htm .

Comments should be sent by July 15, 2007 to:
Glenn Patton
Email: pattong@oclc.org

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)

"The Program for Cooperative Cataloging is an international cooperative effort aimed at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely, and cost-effective cataloging that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world."

Authority Control in the Online Environment Interest Group - 2007 Midwinter Presentations

The ACIG Midwinter 2007 presentations includes: Authority Control Vendors--Twenty Questions

Representatives from three MARCIVE, LTI, and Backstage described the services by responding to a common list of questions and further questions from the audience. These speakers were:

Mary Mastraccio, Cataloging & Authorities Librarian, MARCIVE, Inc.
Marsha Hunt, Database Services Librarian, Library Technologies, Inc.
John Reese, Product Manager, Authority Control Team, Backstage Library Works

This Old Network: Simon Spero Questions LOC Authorities

Apparently the entire LC authority file (unclear whether names, subjects or both), has been converted to MARCXML and is available to researchers. See http://www.ibiblio.org/fred2.0/readme.pdf

Backstage Library Works. Scanning, Digitization, Cataloging, Reclassification, Retrospective Conversion.

MARCIVE, Inc.

Teaching Authority Control

From EDUCAT:

Taylor, Arlene G. "Teaching Authority Control." Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 38, no. 3/4 (2004): 43-57. Also published in _Authority Control in Organizing and Accessing Information: Definition and International Experience_. Arlene G. Taylor and Barbara B. Tillett, eds. New York: The Haworth Information Press, 2004), pp. 43-57.

It contains several suggestions from people on this list [EDUCAT] as to ways to teach authority control (and also substantiates the very difficult task that it seems to be for all of us to get the point across).

Authority Tools for Audiovisual and Music Catalogers: An Annotated List of Useful Resources

When I first saw this tool, it was focused mostly on music. It now includes a wide number of tools to support audiovisual cataloging, including film, drama, & dance reference works. Each citation includes a nice annotation. Also, includes a list of tools which were deemed not useful (for authority work)