[Evergreen-catalogers] [External] Re: Indexing =400 Authority MARC Fields in Author and Subject Searches

[Szwagiel, Will]

Hi Johnathan,

This is strictly for NC Cardinal, though if other consortia that used Evergreen wanted/decided to do something similar, I could see how creating an authorities list for all Evergreen users might be helpful, but I am not sure we would ever entirely stop using LOC.  For example, in  our case the Government and Heritage Library of the State Library relies heavily on LOC authority records, so it would be unlikely that we would want to ever do away with them completely.

As for how you search for them, it is my understanding that the only way you really can in Evergreen as it currently stands is to use the browse functionality.  Or if you have the authority record's ID, you can retrieve them directly with that.


William C. Szwagiel

NC Cardinal Project Manager

State Library of North Carolina

william.szwagiel at ncdcr.gov<mailto:william.szwagiel at ncdcr.gov> | 919.814.6721

https://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/services-libraries/nc-cardinal

109 East Jones Street  | 4640 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-4600

The State Library is part of the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.

Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.



________________________________
From: Johnathon Redmon <jredmon at monticello.lib.in.us>
Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 9:38 AM
To: Evergreen Community Catalogers <evergreen-catalogers at list.evergreen-ils.org>
Cc: Szwagiel, Will <william.szwagiel at dncr.nc.gov>
Subject: [External] Re: [Evergreen-catalogers] Indexing =400 Authority MARC Fields in Author and Subject Searches

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How do you search/ find evergreen authorities? Is the eventual plan to entirely stop using LOC and have our own authorities list? (I wouldn't be opposed to this because sometimes LOC seems a bit wonky/ not entirely average searcher friendly.)

On Tue, Feb 6, 2024 at 9:07 AM Szwagiel, Will via Evergreen-catalogers <evergreen-catalogers at list.evergreen-ils.org<mailto:evergreen-catalogers at list.evergreen-ils.org>> wrote:
Good morning,

(First, I apologize any duplicate emails you may receive.  I initially sent this to the General listserv, but then I thought it might be better suited for the Cataloging listserv.  So if you have already received this message, I apologize in advance.)

We have been discussing ways to try and make authority records more useful in Evergreen for staff and patrons when searching the catalog.  As it currently stands, if you select Author as the Catalog Field in a search and search for a version of an author's name that appears in a =400 field in the authority record, you will not receive any results.  However, if you search for that same version of the author's name with Keyword selected as the Catalog Field, you will receive results.

One potential solution that has been suggested is to index the =400 fields in the Author search.

This led to a broader discussion regarding a project we are currently undertaking to introduce less problematic or offensive local subject headings into our MARC records.  Basically we are planning to put together a list of terms that we feel are outdated or problematic and then come up with a separate list of terms with which to replace them.  Instead of simply adding our local subject headings to the records and leaving the problematic ones present as is, we intend to replace the problematic ones with the new terms.

This returned to the discussion of how best to handle authority records.  The thinking is that we would add these new terms to the existing authority records (presumably in =400 fields) and potentially index these fields in the Subject search, as well, similar to how we discussed potentially doing this with the Author search.

Has anyone else done anything like this before?  If so, how has it worked out for you?  If you have not had much luck with it, what would you recommend as an alternative?

Thank you in advance for any insight you may be able to provide.


William C. Szwagiel

NC Cardinal Project Manager

State Library of North Carolina

william.szwagiel at ncdcr.gov<mailto:william.szwagiel at ncdcr.gov> | 919.814.6721

https://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/services-libraries/nc-cardinal

109 East Jones Street  | 4640 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-4600

The State Library is part of the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.

Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.



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--
Johnathon Redmon
Technical Services Cataloging Clerk
Monticello Union-Township Public Library
321 W. Broadway St.
Monticello, IN 47960
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