[Evergreen-catalogers] MODS indexing and 700 |t

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On May 2, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Hardy, Elaine wrote:
> As most of you are probably aware, Evergreen uses MODS for indexing. One odd element that exists in MODS is that 7xx fields with a subfield t are not defined as a name element (seehttp://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html#name). I see this as a problem since it means that the Evergreen application of MODS as an indexing tool excludes any 700 field with a subfield t from the author index. So, all of those nice analytical entries we add to records aren’t useful in locating an author (and perhaps the title, but I haven’t tested that recently).

Looking at the mapping, 7xx$t are available in the MODS representation in relatedItem elements.  For example,

700 12 $a Fodi, John, $d 1944- $t Down endless lanes where cherries flower.

becomes

    <relatedItem type="constituent">
      <titleInfo>
        <title>Down endless lanes where cherries flower</title>
      </titleInfo>
      <name type="personal">
        <namePart>Fodi, John,</namePart>
        <namePart type="date">1944-</namePart>
      </name>
    </relatedItem>

Consequently, since the data is available in the MODS, it would be possible to include name elements that are part of relatedItems in the various author indexes by either adding entries in config.metabib_field to create "analytic name" indexes or adjusting the XPath in the existing name indexes to cast a wider net.  That raises a few questions to me:

[1] Would it be a good idea to make this part of the default index definitions?  I lean towards yes, but if so, I think it should go hand-in-hand making sure that 7xx with $t are included in the default bib details display in the OPAC.

[2] Should it be possible to give names coming from relatedItems a different weight for the purposes of relevance ranking?  If the answer is yes, that implies that those names would go into separate name indexes rather than being added to the existing ones.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
Director of Support and Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
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