Authority Records

Allow me to share with you one of the many unknown challenges of the librarian/cataloger in today’s library.

On Thursday, I was helping the director of the Amon Carter Museum Library catalog a new exhibition titled The Last Days of W. It was an odd work, printed on newsprint, without a real cover. That means the book conservation volunteer had to make a Phase Box for it, to protect the newsprint from light and from accidental damage.

The primary interface for cataloging in an OCLC client library is a program called Connexion. It allows libraries to look at the bibliographic MARC record and add, edit, or delete information from the local bibliographic record. After we found the record for the book, we loaded it into Connexion and started editing the record.

The record itself was not terribly well done, and needed some alterations to better describe the work. In so doing, we needed to work with the subject fields in the record. The subject fields are controlled by Authority Files. Since we were in Connexion, we could simply do a search for one of the subjects of the book: George Bush, the former president. Here is what the search interface returned:

010  no 95049848
040  TxDa ǂb eng ǂc TxDa ǂd DLC ǂd OCoLC ǂd DGPO ǂd P ǂd DLC ǂd NNU
1001 Bush, George W. ǂq (George Walker), ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, George, ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Geo, ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Dzhordzh Uoker, ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Dzh. U. ǂq (Dzhordzh Uoker), ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Dzh. ǂq (Dzhordzh), ǂc mladshiĭ, ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, ǂc mladshiĭ, ǂd 1946-
4001 Bushi, Qiaozhi W., ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Zhorzh, ǂd 1946-
4001 Arbusto, Jorge W., ǂd 1946-
4001 Bush, Xhorxh W., ǂd 1946-
5101 Texas. ǂb Governor (1995-2000 : Bush)
5101 United States. ǂb President (2001-2009 : Bush)
670  WW in American politics, 1995-96: ǂb p. 2536 (Bush, George W., Gov, Tex; b. 1948)
670  1995 inauguration, 1995: ǂb p. 7 (George Walker Bush, Governor of Texas)
670  The father's son, 1998: ǂb t.p. (George W. Bush, Jr.) p. 1, etc. (Geo; b. in 1946)
670  Academic Amer. encyc. ǂb (under father: George, b. 1946)
670  Encyc. Amer. ǂb (under father: George; b. 1946)
670  Bush Web site, Dec. 22, 1999 ǂb (George W. Bush; b. July 6, 1946, New Haven, Conn.)
670  Washington Post, 12-14-00 ǂb (Elected the 43rd President of the United States)
670  His Principles for a bipartisan patients' bill of rights, 2001: ǂb t.p. (communication from the President of the United States) p. 2 (George Bush)
670  Biznes s SShA, 2002: ǂb p. 7 (Dzhordzh Uoker Bush; Dzh. U. Bush; Dzh. Busha--mladshego; 43rd President of the United States; elected Nov. 2000)
670  Yong wang zhi qian, 2001: ǂb t.p. (George W. Bush; Qiaozhi W. Bushe)
670  Amerikaga tashrif, 2002: ǂb on leaf preceding t.p. (Zhorzh Bush; Dzhordzh Bush)
670  Krushenie Saddamovskogo Iraka i reakt︠s︡ii︠a︡ stran Azii, 2003: ǂb p. 1 (Bush--mladshego)
670  Filartiga, J. La increíble historia de Jorge W. Arbusto, 2001?
670  www.president.al/shqip/info ǂb (Presidentin amerikan Xhorxh W. Bush)

Now you see why we need those authority records - so that each person, etc. in the subject and author fields are named consistently. The correct name in a subject heading for the former president, is
1001 Bush, George W. ǂq (George Walker), ǂd 1946-
As the 100 field is for a personal name, and the date of birth matches that of the George Bush we were looking for.

Just to put this in perspective, this was but one step in the cataloging process - so you see why it takes so long to catalog books!

- Jason Dean