The cataloger’s toolkit for Vger

2.1. Background

For years, catalogers have been looking forward to a time when the full benefits of automation would be available to them. To be sure, large libraries now have online systems, and catalogers don’t type headings onto cards any more; yet much of the early promise of automation for enhancing productivity and quality has yet to be realized. The mainframe library system was good at manipulating vast amounts of data, but was not so good at the elaborate routines, sometimes involving substantial interaction with an operator, which are required to perform operations such as the construction of an authority record or the shelflisting of a classification number.

The client/server model offers much promise for altering the library computing environment. The tasks at which a large, central computer excels—for example: managing a vast amount of data, and swiftly executing complicated keyword searches—are left to the central computer (the server), while other tasks—such as the formulation of index and record displays from data passed along by the server—are handed off to programs running on smaller computers perched on individual library workers’ desktops (the clients). Unfortunately, the full promise of the client/server model has yet to be realized: clients are often more elaborate than helpful; productivity and quality can suffer. For at least the next several years, until client/server library systems allow library staff to work with speed, efficiency and accuracy, there will be a need for add-on programs to help catalogers attain the highest possible levels of productivity and quality. The cataloger’s toolkit for Vger (CTKV) is one such program, developed at Northwestern University Library and made available to the general Vger community.

2.2. What the toolkit is

The cataloger’s toolkit is a program that runs in the Microsoft Windows™ operating environment. It does its work in some cases by asking Windows certain questions, and using the information gained from Windows to query your Vger database; in other cases, the toolkit simply manipulates some information it already has lying around. The toolkit may present information for your inspection, send a modified record back to Vger automatically, or write a record to a file for your later use. Here are some examples:

• If you ask the toolkit to check the headings in a bibliographic record, the toolkit asks Windows a set of questions that allows it to discover the Vger system number of the record currently displayed by the cataloging client. The toolkit retrieves a fresh copy of the record from Vger,¹ extracts headings from it, and directly searches the Vger indexes to find out how well the headings in the record match information in authority and bibliographic records in your database.
• If you ask the toolkit to create an authority record for a heading that doesn’t already have one, the toolkit formulates a new authority record and (on your option) either writes it to a file or sends it directly to Vger. If the toolkit writes the record to a file, you then use the Vger cataloging client to add the record to your Vger database.

Your Vger system is not aware that the toolkit exists; you do not need to make any kind of modification to your Vger system in order to use most parts of the toolkit.² The toolkit does not allow you to do things on your Vger system that your Vger system does not allow, or that you haven’t been granted permission to do; it simply helps you to use your Vger system in a more efficient manner.

The toolkit assists in some of the repetitive tasks of cataloging, and frees you to concentrate on the aspects of your job for which your training and experience are of vastly greater value. The toolkit does not relieve you of responsibility for the content of your records. Instead, the toolkit helps you gather the information you need to make decisions, and then carries out your informed instructions faithfully, quickly and accurately.

2.3. How the toolkit looks and behaves

The cataloger’s toolkit is a collection of buttons with little pictures, letters, or combinations of pictures and letters on them, arrayed together on a floating toolbar. The picture on each button is intended to help you remember what the button does. (The connection between picture and function is not always clear-cut. Suggestions for changes to the icons on the buttons are always welcome.) The buttons have different background colors to identify in a general way the different functional groups into which they fall. (For example, buttons with deep blue backgrounds deal in some way with call numbers.)

In the following illustration, the toolkit is the pad of buttons in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, with the title ‘Cataloger’s toolkit’; Vger is the large window in the upper right-hand corner.

Use the Button arrangement tab on the toolkit’s Options panel to decide how many rows and columns of buttons you see on the toolkit’s main panel. You can also select which buttons appear (you don’t have to look at buttons you don’t use), and rearrange them to suit your whim. In the preceding illustration, the operator has decided to display 26 of the toolkit’s buttons. The following illustration shows a different toolkit layout; this operator has elected to display 39 buttons.

The gray area under the bottom row of buttons is a status window. The toolkit puts messages in this window from time to time. For example:

• While the toolkit is checking the headings in a bibliographic record, the status window shows each heading in turn.
• While the toolkit is collecting information related to a call number, the status window names in turn each of the major steps.
• After the toolkit has completed certain tasks, the status window will tell you that work was successful or failed.
• When the toolkit doesn’t have anything particular to report, the status window is empty.

The toolkit can (at your option) be set to be always ‘on top’ of every other program you have running. It’s very easy to loose the little toolbar on a cluttered screen. (If you loose the toolkit, you should be able to find its icon in the row to the right of the Windows ‘Start’ button.) If you do not display the toolkit ‘on top’ of other windows, some of the toolkit’s messages may be buried under other programs; displaying the toolkit ‘on top’ of other programs is encouraged.

2.4. General points to keep in mind

You may for one reason or another have multiple copies of the Vger cataloging client open in your Windows desktop. The cataloger’s toolkit will only ‘see’ the one that’s currently ‘on top’ of the other ones.

You may have more than one record (bibliographic, holdings, etc.) open in the Vger cataloging client at a time. The cataloger’s toolkit will only ‘see’ the one that’s currently ‘on top’ of the other ones.

The cataloger’s toolkit works with a bibliographic, holdings, authority or item record as it currently exists in the Vger database, and not necessarily as you see it in the Vger cataloging client. If you have changed a record, save the record back to Vger before using the toolkit to work with the record.

The cataloger’s toolkit does not maintain any kind of permanent connection to the Vger cataloging client; it makes no assumptions about the ‘state’ of the cataloging client. If for some reason you are forced to close and re-open the Vger cataloging client, you do not need to do anything special to the cataloger’s toolkit, such as close it and start it again; the toolkit should be able to find the newly-opened Vger cataloging client without any problem.

The cataloger’s toolkit maintains its own connections directly to the Vger database for reading and writing information. On occasion, for reasons the toolkit cannot control, one or both of these connections may be broken, and the toolkit will suddenly begin to provide unexpected results. (For example, it may tell you that a perfectly nice bibliographic record has no headings.) If this happens, simply close the program and start it again.

2.5. Suggestions for improvements

From time to time, you may find yourself saying ‘Why can’t the toolkit do ...?’, or ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if the toolkit could ...?’ Do not suppress these ideas for enhancements, but let them be known! Many of the buttons in the toolkit are the result of suggestions made by real live catalogers at institutions other than Northwestern University Library, prompted by the needs of the work before them; certainly, the wealth of detail offered by the toolkit is the result of countless suggestions for improvements from many institutions over many years. (For example, the validation/verification routine has been under continuous revision since it was introduced in 1994.) The program exists to make your life easier and better; take the responsibility upon yourself to pass suggestions along.

When you think you have an idea for an enhancement to the toolkit , talk it over with your local toolkit expert—the person responsible for maintaining the current version of the program. In some cases, this person may show you a way to realize your suggestion by using existing features. In other cases, this person should recognize that you have an efficiency- or quality-enhancing idea, and will (with your help) write up your idea into a suggestion, and forward the suggestion to Northwestern University Library.

The idea you have may seem at first blush to be of interest only to workers at your institution. Do not let this deter you from making the suggestion. If your idea will promote efficiency or improve quality at your institution, pass your suggestion along. It often happens that such an idea, bolstered by a few options, will produce a tool that can be used by many institutions.

2.6. About the online documentation

This online document should tell you everything you need to know to use the toolkit effectively. It is divided into several large sections, each dealing with a different set of tasks performed by the toolkit. In each section, there is a brief general description of the kinds of things the buttons do, followed by a detailed description of the work done by each button.

In this document, the word screen means the video monitor attached to your personal computer.

References to the left and right mouse buttons assume the native disposition of buttons under Windows. If you have reversed the left and right mouse buttons, you should mentally reverse the instructions in this manual as well.

It is assumed throughout this manual that you know how to perform common Windows operations, such as clicking buttons and selecting text.

2.7. Conventions used in the online documentation

Keys on the keyboard are named with the first letter in upper-case: Clear, Enter.

Names of buttons on the toolkit’s button pad are given in upper-case italic letters: BAM button; BIG RED CROSS button.

Names of buttons on other toolkit display panels are given as they appear, within quotation marks: ‘Create authority’; ‘OK.’

If you print out this document in black and white, some of the features of the toolkit which rely on color or shades of gray will only be approximated.

Exceptions and other unexpected but especially important things to remember are marked with a ‘pointing finger’ symbol.

2.8. A note on the illustrations

The illustrations in this document may fairly be assumed to show the most recent version of the item under immediate discussion. Some illustrations will reflect earlier versions of items not under immediate consideration. For example, an illustration of the verification report should show the current version of that report; but the toolkit’s toolbar visible in the same illustration may not show all buttons currently available.

2.9. How to find out more

When you have questions about using the toolkit, you should always look first at this online documentation. You should be able to find answers to most of your questions here. The main toolkit panel has a HELP button; you can pick up this button with the mouse and drop it on some other button, and the online documentation will open to the description of that button.

If you rest the mouse pointer over any of the toolkit’s buttons, you’ll see a very brief description of what the button does. This description also shows you the keyboard shortcut you can use instead of clicking the button.

Most of the toolkit’s subsidiary panels have a ‘help’ button, with a question mark icon. If you click this button, the online documentation will open to the description of that panel. The following illustration shows the lower portion of one such form, with the ‘help’ button in the lower left corner.

Each institution should have a ‘toolkit guru,’ a person responsible for installing and maintaining the program. If you are unable to find an answer to your question in the online documentation, discuss the situation with your local toolkit expert. In many cases this person will be able to find an answer for you.

In some cases, you may wish to post a description of your problem, or a question, to an appropriate online discussion group.

If your friendly local toolkit expert and the body of toolkit users available via an online discussion list are unable to answer your question, your local toolkit expert may decide to contact the appropriate person at Northwestern University Library. (It’s easier on the programmer if each institution funnels suggestions and problems through one person.)

To summarize: When confronted with a question, always try to find the answer yourself. If this doesn’t work, contact your local toolkit expert, or other toolkit users. If all else fails, contact Northwestern University Library directly. You should not rest until you believe your problem has received a proper airing.

2.10. Installation

Versions of the toolkit prepared after October 2004 for any version of Vger appear only to work with Windows XP.

 
      Start 
         Programs 
            Northwestern University Library 
               Cataloger’s toolkit

      Program Files
         ctk

3.1. Basic concepts

The first of these buttons allows you to verify the headings in a bibliographic or authority record and validate the MARC content designation (tags, indicators, and subfield codes) in a bibliographic, authority or holdings record.⁵ The remaining buttons allow you to recall previously-generated reports of this work. These buttons are the BAM button, the Bibliographic BAM report button, the Authority BAM report button and the Holdings report button.

The toolkit first validates the record’s MARC content designation. For bibliographic and authority records, the toolkit also extracts search keys from appropriate fields and compares each heading to other headings in your Vger datababse. This process, complicated though it is, normally takes just a second or two. If you have told the toolkit to do so with the appropriate options, the toolkit will automatically correct certain kinds of errors, and update the record in the Vger database.

When the toolkit has finished its work, it shows you a report that describes its work, and highlights any problems it found. This online report contains buttons to help you with any additional work that may be necessary: changing MARC coding, creating authority records, and so on. If you use the BAM button for every record you process, you can eliminate many errors in your Vger database.

To validate the MARC content designation in a record and verify its headings, click the BAM button. (BAM stands for bibliographic and authority verification, and MARC validation.) What the toolkit does next depends on the topmost record in the Vger window.

If the topmost record is a bibliographic record or authority record, the toolkit retrieves a fresh copy of the record from Vger,⁶ inspects the MARC coding in the record, extracts headings from the record, and checks each of those headings against bibliographic and authority records in your Vger database.

If the topmost record is a holdings record, the toolkit retrieves a fresh copy of the record from Vger and inspects the MARC coding in it.

If you have asked the toolkit (through a set of configuration options) to save records changed during BAM, leave your computer alone after you click the BAM button, and leave it alone until you see the toolkit’s BAM report. (As part of its work, the toolkit may make changes to the record, save it back to Vger, and re-open the modified record in the cataloging client. Interfering with the computer while all this is happening will probably mean that the toolkit can’t finish its work.) If you have told the toollkit not to modify records during BAM, you can resume work on your computer immediately after you click the BAM button; none of the work you do will interfere with the work the toolkit is doing. In any case, the toolkit’s status window shows the heading with which it is working as it wends its way through the record; this gives you some idea of the progress the program is making. As soon as the toolkit has finished its work, it presents you with its report. (This report is described elsewhere.)

The very first time you use the BAM button, there may be a significant pause (perhaps a minute or more), as the toolkit reads your Vger tag tables and builds a ‘compressed’ version of them. After this first time, the toolkit uses its compressed version of the Vger tag tables; subsequent work with the BAM button will happen much more quickly.⁷

Configuration points to keep in mind

The work performed by the BAM button is controlled by a welter of BAM-related choices on the Options panel, in addition to general settings such as those on the Vger connection and NUC codes tabs.

3.2. The bibliographic BAM report

3.3. The authority BAM report

The authority BAM report describes how the headings and MARC coding in an authority record measure up against various standards. This report is similar to the bibliographic BAM report in layout, content, and capabilities. For most matters, you should apply the description of the bibliographic BAM report to the authority BAM report.

The following description is limited to differences between the authority and bibliographic BAM reports. These differences lie chiefly in the codes assigned to headings verified, although even here there are parallels with codes used in the bibliographic BAM report.

When you click the BAM button while the Vger cataloging client shows an authority record, the toolkit checks the record and immediately shows you the authority BAM report. You can use the Authority BAM report button to call up this report whenever you like—the toolkit keeps the authority verification report on hand until you verify the next authority record, or you cancel the program. (To remove the report from the screen temporarily, click the ‘Close’ button.)

The first code in any heading line shows the result of the comparison of the heading to headings in other authority records. Here are some commonly-met codes:

• +	The heading matches a 1XX field in another authority record. (For 1XX fields, this is bad: is there another authority record for the same heading? For partial 4XX and all 5XX fields, this is OK.)

• ?	The heading matches the text of a 1XX field in an authority record, but the tags don’t correspond

• 0	The heading doesn’t match anything in any authority record that it shouldn’t (this is OK)

• !	The heading matches a see reference or is otherwise suspicious (this is bad)

• 5	The heading only matches a 5XX field (this is OK)

If there appears to be no conflict between the heading being tested and authority-related information (the first code in the line is ‘0’), the second (and possibly third codes) show how the heading compares against headings in bibliographic records in your file. Here are some typical codes for the second code:

• 0	The heading is used in no bibliographic records

• +	The heading is used in at least one bibliographic record

• ?	The heading matches text in a bibliographic record, but the tags don’t correspond

As is the case with headings in the bibliographic BAM report, the toolkit shows you headings that seem to be OK by giving the OK headings in lower-case letters; it show headings that seem to need further work in upper-case letters. This visual clue allows you to concentrate on the headings most likely to require your attention.

• 5

  150:

  :

  low income housing

• The established heading heading matches a 5XX field in a different authority record, and is therefore probably OK

• +

  450:

  :

  poor

• The heading—which is only part of a 4XX field—matches 1XX field in an authority record, and is therefore probably OK

• 0!

  450:

  :

  POOR--HOUSING

• The 4XX field matches no authority data, but matches a subject heading in a bibliographic record; this is not OK

3.4. The holdings BAM report

A holdings record does not contain any headings, so the BAM report for a holdings contains only a report of MARC coding problems. The toolkit presents MARC coding problems for a holdings record in a window that’s much simpler than the bibliographic and authority BAM reports. Here’s a typical example:

As is the case with the reports of MARC coding problems included in bibliographic and authority BAM reports, you need to work through the report of MARC coding problems in a holdings record one line at a time, and resolve each as appropriate. (It is not likely that any of the errors in a holdings BAM report can be corrected automatically, so there is no ‘Change’ button in this report.)

4.1. Introduction

This group of buttons allows you to do various things related to call numbers: to build complete call numbers, to find associations between call numbers and subject headings, to shelflist classification numbers, and to move a call number from a bibliographic to a holdings record. These buttons all have a deep blue background color.

There is a second set of buttons related to call numbers. These buttons have a dark purple background, and only work for catalogers at Northwestern University Library. These buttons are described in a separate section of this document.

From left to right in the above illustration, the buttons with the blue background do the following:

• Construct a list of classification numbers appearing most often with a subject heading (requires setup on the Vger server)
• Construct a list of subject headings appearing most often with a classification number (requires setup on the Vger server)
• Generate a complete unique call number, shelflisted to fit into the local collection (requires setup on the Vger server)
• Transfer a call number from the bibliographic to the holdings record
• Assign a sequential number in lieu of a call number

These buttons are described in the following sections.

4.2. Generate a list of classification numbers used with a subject heading (S# button)

The S# button gives you a way to find the classification numbers that appear in your database most frequently with a given subject heading—when that subject heading is the first subject heading of its type in a bibliographic record. The image on the button means ‘go from subject to class number.’

For efficiency’s sake, this button was originally designed to call on a library of routines that resides on your Vger server. For most efficient use of this button, you should obtain this library of routines (written in the PL/SQL language, the native Oracle programming language), install the library on your server, and configure the toolkit to use the library.³⁰ Only after the routines have been installed on the server, and you have configured the toolkit correctly, can you use this button in the most efficient manner.

If you cannot or do not wish to install this library of PL/SQL routines on your server, this button will still work—it’ll just take longer for you to see the results.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• The owning library on the General tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab, including the ‘Oracle schema’ box³¹
• Settings specific to the S# and #S buttons

As mentioned above, this button will use a library of routines installed on your server for most efficient performance, but lacking this library it will simulate the server routine with a workstation routine. The results of the two methods should be identical, but the server routines will always take less time to finish.

What happens

When you click this button, the toolkit presents you with an inquiry form that looks something like this:

Type the heading in which you’re interested into the box in the upper frame. If the heading consists of a main heading with subject subdivisions and if you’d like to see a list of call numbers not only for the whole heading but also for shorter parts of the heading, give two hyphens between each segment. If you’d like to see a list of call numbers associated with any heading that begins with your text, follow your heading with a percent sign, a pound sign or a question mark to indicate right truncation. If you’d like to see call numbers for a main heading plus a subdivision, skipping over any intervening subdivisions, place a pound sign (‘#’) between the main heading and the subdivision.

• If you type:
• caribbean area--politics and government--1945
• the toolkit will search for call numbers used with the following headings:
• caribbean area--politics and government 1945
• caribbean area--politics and government
• caribbean area

• If you type:
• caribbean area politics and government?
• the toolkit will search for call numbers used with all headings that begin ‘caribbean area politics and government’

• If you type:
• caribbean area # bibliography
• the toolkit will search for call numbers used with any heading that begins ‘caribbean area’ and also contains ‘bibliography’ (such as ‘Caribbean Area $x Politics and government $v Bibliography’)

In the upper frame, also click the radio button that identifies the subject heading system to which your heading belongs. In the next frame, click the radio button that identifies the kind of call numbers you’re interested in.³² You can ask the toolkit to search for any combination of subject headings and call numbers; but, of course, your database will probably not contain all of the combinations. (If you ask for a combination that doesn’t exist in your database, the toolkit will simply say it didn’t find anything.)

When everything appears OK, click the ‘Search’ button in the middle. Depending on the nature of your request, you will see results immediately, or after a delay of variable length.³³ The following illustration shows a typical example of what you might see.

The box at the bottom of the panel now contains a summary list of the classification numbers associated with your subject heading. The classification numbers are sorted in decreasing frequency of occurrence.

To generate this summary, the toolkit routine (which operates either on the server or on the workstation, depending on the toolkit’s configuration) asks Vger for a list of the bibliographic records owned by your owning library that contain a given subject heading and have a call number of the proper type. The toolkit examines each bibliographic record, and considers only those that contain your subject heading as the first subject heading.³⁴ The toolkit generates a summary of the classification numbers assigned to records that contain the subject as the first heading and returns it to the toolkit.

When you see this report, you can do the following:

• Click the ‘Revise’ button to move the original search term back into the topmost box. You can modify the heading as needed, and click the ‘Search’ button again.
• Supply a different subject heading and generate a summary of classification numbers associated with it.
• Click the ‘Show bibs’ button to see a list of the bibliographic records whose holdings contain a particular call number. (Be patient; it takes as much time to generate this list as it does to perform the original search.)
• Assign the classification number to the item you’re cataloging. If you click the ‘Assign call number with this’ button, the toolkit hands the number over to the routine that handles the SHELFLISTING button, which pretends that the number comes from a call number field of your bibliographic record. (Northwestern University Library users only: the toolkit pretends that you’ve just clicked the ‘C’ button, which behaves as if the number you select came from the 082 field of your bibliographic record.)
• Copy the classification number to the Windows clipboard. You can then paste it (with Control-V) into a holdings record.

4.3. Generate a list of subject headings used with a classification number (#S button)

The #S button gives you a way to find the subject headings that appear in your database most frequently with a given classification number. The image on the button means ‘go from class number to subject.’

For efficiency’s sake, this button was originally designed to call on a library of routines that resides on your Vger server. For most efficient use of this button, you should obtain this library of routines (written in the PL/SQL language, the native Oracle programming language), install the library on your server, and configure the toolkit to use the library.³⁵ Only after the routines have been installed on the server, and you have configured the toolkit correctly, can you use this button in the most efficient manner.

If you cannot or do not wish to install this library of PL/SQL routines on your server, this button will still work—it’ll just take longer for you to see the results.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• The owning library on the General tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab, including the ‘Oracle schema’ box³⁶
• Settings specific to the S# and #S buttons

As mentioned above, this button will use a library of routines installed on your server for most efficient performance, but lacking this library it will simulate the server routine with a workstation routine. The results of the two methods should be identical, but the server routines will always take less time to finish.

What hapens

When you click this button, the toolkit presents you with an inquiry form that looks something like this:

Type the classification number in which you’re interested into the box in the upper frame. The toolkit assumes right truncation in all cases.

• If you type:
• 759.5
• ... and identify this as a Dewey number, the toolkit will consider all call numbers that begin ‘759.5’:
• 759.5, 759.51, 759.52, etc.

• If you type:
• B132
• ... and identify this as an LC number, the toolkit will consider all call numbers that begin ‘B132’:
• B132.D5, B132.V3N38 1977, etc.
• Because of the way Vger normalizes Library of Congress numbers, you cannot use a truncated number to search for a range of numbers; searching for ‘B13’ will retrieve only numbers that begin ‘B13’, and not anything in the range B130-B139.

In the upper frame, also click the radio button that identifies the classification system to which the classification number belongs. In the next frame, click a radio button that identifies the subject system of the headings you’re interested in.³⁷ You can ask the toolkit to search for any combination of subject headings and call numbers; but, of course, your database will probably not contain all of the combinations. (If you ask for a combination that doesn’t exist in your database, the toolkit will simply say it didn’t find anything.)

When everything appears OK, click the ‘Search’ button in the middle of the panel. Depending on the nature of your request, you will see results immediately, or after a delay of variable length.³⁸ The following illustration shows a typical example.

The box at the bottom of the panel now contains a summary list of the subject headings associated with your classification number. The subject headings are sorted in decreasing frequency of occurrence.

To generate this summary, the toolkit routine (which operates either on the server or on the workstation, depending on the toolkit’s configuration) asks Vger for a list of the bibliographic records owned by your owning library whose holdings records contain a given call number of the proper type, and begin with the number you supply. The toolkit extracts from each bibliographic record the first subject heading of the proper type. It generates a summary of the subject headings it finds. This summary does not identify the actual classification numbers assigned to each bibliographic record; you can only be certain that each classification number begins with the information you supply.

When you see this report, you can do the following:

• Click the ‘Revise’ button to move the original search term back into the topmost box. You can modify the class number as needed, and click the ‘Search’ button again.
• Supply a different classification number and generate a summary of subject headings associated with it.
• Click the ‘Show bibs’ button to see a list of the bibliographic records whose holdings contain a particular call number. (Be patient; it takes as much time to generate this list as it does to perform the original search.)

4.4. Move a call number from the bibliographic record to the holdings record

This button allows you to move a call number from a bibliographic record into the holdings record without having first to copy it to the Windows clipboard. You define on the Options panel the kind of call number you want to move, and then use this button to move the call number. You can click this button when either a bibliographic or a holdings record is the active record in the Vger cataloging client’s window.

Althoug this button does perform simple duplicate detection, the button does not check to see if the transferred number places the item at the ‘best’ point in your shelflist. (The SHELFLISTING button provides more control over the assignment of call numbers.)

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• The ‘Getting started’ and ‘Handling of finished number’ tabs on the options display for the toolkit’s call number buttons
• The first connection defined on the Connections tab, including the ‘Write UID’ and ‘Write PWD’
• The ‘Path to Voyager.INI’ box also on the Connections tab
• The owning library on the General tab

What hapens

When you click this button, the toolkit obtains from the Vger cataloging client the number of the active record, and retrieves from Vger a fresh copy of that record. The toolkit scans the record for the kind of call number you defined on the Options panel. If it finds the appropriate kind of call number, the toolkit inserts it into the first holdings record attached to your bibliographic record that appears not already to have a call number. The toolkit saves this modified holdings record to your Vger database, and then displays it in the Vger cataloging client’s window. When you see the record in the cataloging client’s window, it has already been saved to your Vger database. If you don’t like the number for some reason, you must modify the holdings record and save the record again.

If this call number duplicates a number already in your shelflist, the toolkit will notify you with a simple message. Use the SHELFLISTING button if you wish the toolkit to fit a call number into your local shelflist.

4.5. Assign sequential numbers (1,2,3 button)

Use this button to find the next number in a sequence and use that number as all or part of the call number in a Vger holdings record.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Sequential # tab on the options display for the toolkit’s call number buttons
• The owning library on the General tab
• The ‘Write UID’ and ‘Write PWD’ for the first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

The toolkit retrieves the number of the active record from the Vger cataloging client, and fetches a fresh copy of the record from the Vger database. If the Vger cataloging client shows a bibliographic record, the toolkit also retrieves the first holdings record attached to the record that doesn’t already have a call number; if the Vger cataloging client shows a holdings record, the program also retrieves the bibliographic record. The toolkit extracts various pieces of information from these two records (the location from the holdings record, the leader, 006, 007 and 008 fields from the bibliographic record). The toolkit then attempts to match all this information to the definitions for sequential numbers.

If the toolkit finds exactly one match, it assigns the next number in the series.³⁹ If the toolkit finds more than one match, the toolkit asks you to identify the pattern it should use. After it has assigned the next number, the toolkit puts the finished call number into the holdings record, saves it to the Vger database, and opens the record in the Vger cataloging client. Finally, the toolkit updates its configuration (so it knows the number it has assigned most recently).

4.6. Shelflist classification numbers

Assigning the call number for an item is not simply a matter of finding a likely candidate in a bibliographic record and copying it into the holdings 852 field. The presence of other call numbers in the local database, the handling of earlier editions, and the classification practice for any series that appear in the bibliographic record, must all be taken into account. The toolkit’s SHELFLIST A CALL NUMBER button is not the perfect tool or most complete for working with call numbers, but it has a number of features that can make the process less tedious most of the time.

Several pieces of the toolkit’s configuration (available on the toolkit’s Options panel) are related to work with call numbers:

• Information on the Call number options panel
• The Oracle schema on the Connections tab.

To begin work with a call number, click the SHELFLIST A CALL NUMBER button when the cataloging client shows a bibliographic, holdings or item record. The toolkit finds the bibliographic record and inspects the holdings records attached to it—there must be at least one holdings record with no call number. The toolkit BAMs the bibliographic record (unless you have just BAMmed the record and you haven’t changed the record since) so that it has authority records for all of the headings (series authority records are the most important, but the toolkit needs all of them). Using your definition, the toolkit searches the bibliographic record for interesting call numbers. The toolkit checks authority records to see if any series in the bib record is classed together, and it looks for other editions of the work.

If the series is not classed together and if there are no other editions of the work and if the call number has not already been used in your holdings records and if you have told the toolkit to do so, the toolkit pastes the call number from the bib record into the holdings record, and you’re done. If any one of these conditions does not apply, the toolkit builds a list of the subject headings in the bib record, and shows you a panel that describes what it found; the following is a typical example.

The left side of this panel is the same for all kinds of call numbers; the right side has different things for the different kinds of call numbers.

• If an authority record for a series contained in a bib record indicates that a series should be classed together, the ‘Classed series’ box contains the toolkit’s best guess at the complete number. (It sticks the contents of series subfield $v onto the end of the call number from the holdings record.) If no series authority record indicates that it should be classed together, this box is empty.
• The ‘Call number from bib record’ box contains the call number found in the bib record (following your definition for call numbers of interest). The caption for the box will tell you if this number duplicates the number in another holdings record in your database.
• The toolkit removes the date and final cutter block from the call number found in the bibliographic record, and attempts to shelflist the number according to its best lights. If that number is significantly different from the number found in the bib record (for example, if the program had to adjust the cutter number to fit around existing items) the toolkit will show it to you in the ‘Bibliographic call number adjusted’ box. If this box is empty, the toolkit did not need to change the bibliographic number to make it fit into your shelflist.
• The ‘Other editions’ box lists what appear to be other editions of the same work that the toolkit found in your catalog. The ‘Show’ button here gives you a fuller display of the bibliographic record; the ‘Vger’ button calls up the record in the Vger cataloging client.
• The toolkit lists the subject headings from the bibliographic record in the ‘LC subject headings’ box. Highlight one of the subject headings and click the ‘List’ button to see the classification numbers used in your catalog with that subject heading; the toolkit shows you the list in the box just below. (The ‘Change’ button next to this list allows you to modify one of the class numbers for use in the holdings record; the ‘Bibs’ button gives you a list of the bib records that contain the subject heading and call number.) Use the ‘Other’ button to see a list of class numbers used with some subject heading not found in the bib record.

Next to many of the call numbers on the left side of this panel, you’ll find a number of buttons with identical captions; these buttons apply to the call number with which they are paired.

• Click the ‘Use’ if you want the toolkit to move the adjacent call number into the holdings record.
• Click the ‘>’ button if you want the toolkit to move the classification portion of the number to the right side of the panel, for further work.

For Library of Congress call numbers, the right side of the panel contains the following (in addition to the basic classification number at the top):

• A set of radio buttons, that allow you to choose the pattern of cuttering applicable in this case. Note most carefully that the toolkit does not know how to do all varieties of LC cuttering, only the most common types. If you need a cuttering pattern that’s not listed here, you’ll have to complete the call number yourself.
• Boxes to specify the applicable beginning and ending ranges for the first and second cutters (when there are two cutters). In many classification schemes, cutters at the beginning of the letter ‘A’ and/or cutters at the end of the letter ‘Z’ are reserved for special purposes. If this is the case (at least when the corresponding cuttering text begins with the letter involved in the limited range), you need to tell the toolkit just what portions of the cuttering alphabet are available. Similarly, if the entire alphabet has to be stuffed into a narrow range (for example: Z46-479: Autobiography, by title), give that narrow range here. Finally, if a cutter with a fixed value is relevant in a particular case, give that fixed cutter as the beginning cutter in the range, with no ending cutter. (Example: .A1: Collected works, by date.)

When you click the ‘Use’ button, the toolkit will complete the call number (adding cutters if missing, and date) and paste the finished number into the holdings record.

5.1. Request batch corrections

Introduction

Libraries often need to make the same change to a number of records. If a name or topical heading changes from one form to another (from the personal name ‘Ray, Satyajit, $d 1922-’ to ‘Ray, Satyajit, $d 1921-1992’, or from the MeSH heading ‘Hemodialysis’ to ‘Renal Dialysis’, for example), libraries need to find and change each instance of the former heading in their records. Libraries have two principal courses of action open to them: they can ask an operator to call up each affected record and make a suitable change to each; or they can use a program to change records for them. The latter course, because it is quicker and less prone to error, should be the preferred one—provided the batch correction program is sufficiently capable, elaborate and robust.

Northwestern University Library distributes a suite of ‘batch correction’ programs for the Vger system. Working together, these programs allow you to make changes to a number of records with a single request. These programs can make a substantial difference—a positive difference—in the quality of headings in your database. Endeavor Information Systems, Inc. also distributes a set of programs as part of its Vger system that makes changes to groups of records. The Vger and Northwestern batch correction programs differ in significant ways, both in the manner in which you make correction requests, and the manner in which programs carry out your requests.

Depending on how your institution wishes to change records, the Northwestern University Library suite of batch correction programs consists of either two or three separate programs; this means that the work of performing corrections can be a multi-step task. You will use different programs to request corrections to your records, and to perform the corrections. If you wish to review corrections before they are performed, you will use yet another program some time after you make the initial request but before the request is actually performed.

This section of this document tells you how to do the first step: how to use buttons on the cataloger’s toolkit to request a change to a heading in a set of records; this document also outlines the remainder of the correction process. Another document (Making changes to headings) tells you in detail how the other programs in the batch correction suite use the requests you make with the toolkit to change your records. The description of the correction process is divided into two parts in this manner because the majority of those engaged in this work will only perform the first step (generate the request), while only a very few people at a given institution (perhaps only one person) will be responsible for the remainder of the process (approving and performing corrections). Naturally, at some institutions, one person may be in charge of all of the steps.

There are three different ways you can request a batch correction to bibliographic headings.

• Many corrections consist of a single change to a single field (such as the replacement of one form of a personal name with another; or the replacement of one topical heading to another),⁴⁰ and are to be applied to all records in a database. You request such simple corrections—which will constitute the great majority of your correction work—with the BIG RED CROSS button. (It may help to remember what this button does if you think of it as the ‘first aid for headings’ button.)
• In other situations, you will want to do something more elaborate: change one heading into several, or change headings in some records to one heading but change the same heading in other records to a different heading; or apply a change only to a subset of records that contain a heading. When your needs are more elaborate than can be encompassed within the BIG RED CROSS button, you will use the SPLIT HEADINGS button⁴¹ to make the request.
• You can use the BIG RED Q button to review headings in the Vger changed headings queue, and request corrections based on the authority record that lies behind the changed headings queue entry.

Here are some examples of the kind of changes the program can make with the BIG RED CROSS button:⁴²

• Based on these fields (and other information) in a name authoriy record:⁴³
• 100 1 $a Kimball, Dexter S. $q (Dexter Simpson), $d 1865-1952
• 400 1 $w nna $a Kimball, Dexter Simpson, $d 1865 1952
• ... these programs can change this bibliographic field:
• 700 1 $a Kimball, Dexter Simpson, $d 1865-1952. $t Selections. $f 1997.
• ... to this:
• 700 1 $a Kimball, Dexter S. $q (Dexter Simpson), $d 1865 1952. $t Selections. $f 1997.

• Based on these fields (and other information) in an LCSH authoriy record:
• 150 $a Iban (Bornean people)
• 450 $w Ibans (Borean people)
• ... these programs can change this bibliographic field:
• 650 0 $a Ibans (Borean people) $z United States $v Bibliography.
• ... to this:
• 650 0 $a Iban (Borean people) $z United States $v Bibliography.

• Based on these fields (and other information) in an LCSH authoriy record for a subject subdivision:
• 180 $x African American authors
• 480 $w nne $x Afro-American authors
• ... these programs can change this bibliographic field:
• 650 0 $a American literature $x Afro-American authors $v Bibliography.
• ... to this:
• 650 0 $a American literature $x African American authors $v Bibliography.

Here is an example of one kind of change the program can make with the SPLIT HEADINGS button:

• Based on these fields (and other information) in two different LCSH authoriy records:
• 151 $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government $y 1973-1989
• 451 $w nnoa $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government $y 1973-
• .
• 151 $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government $y 1989-2001
• ... these programs can, when requested to do so, change this bibliographic field:
• 651 0 $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government 1973- $v Bibliography
• ... to this pair of fields:
• 651 0 $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government 1973-1989 $v Bibliography
• 651 0 $a Afghanistan $x Politics and government 1989-2001 $v Bibliography
• This correction can, when appropriate, be limited to selected bibliographic records.

The Vger system maintains a heading change queue, with an entry for each heading that has changed.⁴⁴ You can use the toolkit’s BIG RED Q button to review entries in the Vger changed heading queue, and convert them into correction requests to be processed by other parts of Northwestern’s suite of heading change programs. Each entry that you choose to process with these programs becomes either a simple request handled with the BIG RED CROSS button or an elaborate request with the SPLIT HEADINGS button. It will make the most sense to describe these other two buttons first, and then show how the BIG RED Q button relates to them.

5.2. Create a 670 field from bibliographic information

The 670 button gives you a way to add a new source citation (670 field) to an existing authority record, based on information in a bibliographic record. Under certain conditions, this button will also add a new reference tracing (4XX) field to the authority record. If the authority record represents a ‘non-unique’ personal name, the 670 button will also generate an ‘[Author of ...]’ 670 field for you.

For example, if a bibliograhpic record contains a statement of responsibility that shows a form of heading not reflected in the authority record for the heading, you can use the 670 button to add a new source citation to the authority record; and if that new form of heading is one of the types for which the toolkit can generate a reference tracing, it will automatically add a new 4XX field, as well.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Buttons that add fields to authority tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab, including the ‘Oracle schema’ box

What happens

To use this button, you need to show the toolkit the authority record for the heading, and the bibliographic to draw on for new information. You can click this button when the Vger cataloging client shows either the authority record or the bibliographic record.

• If the Vger cataloging client shows an authority record when you click the 670 button, the toolkit absorbs information about the authority record, then asks you in a simple dialog window for the bibliographic record. You display the bibliographic record in the Vger cataloging client, then click the ‘OK’ button in the dialog window. The toolkit absorbs information about the bibliographic record.
• If the Vger cataloging client shows a bibliographic record when you click the 670 button, the toolkit absorbs information about the bibliographic record, then asks you in a simple dialog window for the authority record. You display the authority record in the Vger cataloging client, then click the ‘OK’ button in the dialog window. The toolkit absorbs information about the authority record.

Once you have shown the toolkit the authority and bibliographic records, the toolkit extracts information from the bibliograhpic record, and adds a new 670 field to the record. If the authority record is for a non-unique personal name, the toolkit adds a new ‘[Author of ...]’ 670 before the new source citation. If the toolkit is able to add a new 4XX field, it does this as well.⁷³ When this work is finished, the toolkit closes the authority record in the Vger cataloging client, writes the changed record to the Vger database, then re-opens the authority record in the cataloging client. When you see the modified authority record, the changes have already been made to the Vger record.

• Given this field in an authority record:
• 100 $a Smith, James Morton, $d 1952-
• ... and these fields in a bibliographic record:
• 100 $a Smith, James Morton, $d 1952-
• 245 $a This bogus title / $c J.M. Smith.
• 260 $a Chicago : $b Smith, $c 2004.
• ... the toolkit will add a 670 field and 400 field to the authority record.⁷⁴ The new fields are shown in boldface.
• 100 $a Smith, James Morton, $d 1952-
• 400 $a Smith, J. M. $q (James Morton), $d 1952-
• 670 $a This bogus title, 2004: $b t.p. (J.M. Smith)

5.3. Create a 643 field from bibliographic information

The 643 button gives you a way to add a new series place/publisher (643 field) to an existing authority record, based on information in a bibliographic record.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Buttons that add fields to authority tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab, including the ‘Oracle schema’ box

What happens

To use this button, you need to show the toolkit the authority record for the heading, and the bibliographic to draw on for new information. You can click this button when the Vger cataloging client shows either the authority record or the bibliographic record.

• If the Vger cataloging client shows an authority record when you click the 670 button, the toolkit absorbs information about the authority record, then asks you in a simple dialog window for the bibliographic record. You display the bibliographic record in the Vger cataloging client, then click the ‘OK’ button in the dialog window. The toolkit absorbs information about the bibliographic record.
• If the Vger cataloging client shows a bibliographic record when you click the 670 button, the toolkit absorbs information about the bibliographic record, then asks you in a simple dialog window for the authority record. You display the authority record in the Vger cataloging client, then click the ‘OK’ button in the dialog window. The toolkit absorbs information about the authority record.

Once you have shown the toolkit the authority and bibliographic records, the toolkit extracts information from the bibliograhpic record, and adds a new 643 field to the authority record. The toolkit closes the authority record in the Vger cataloging client, writes the changed record to the Vger database, then re-opens the authority record in the cataloging client. When you see the modified authority record, the changes have already been made to the Vger record.

5.4. Create a 670 field from GNIS information

When building an authority record for a place in the United States, you will often need to search GNIS, the Web site maintained by the US Geological Survey. If you find information at this site, you will often want to preserve it in a 670 field in the authority record for the place. You can use the GNIS button to convert information found during a GNIS search into a 670 field and perhaps also into see reference tracings.

The successful performance of this function depends on the layout of information at the GNIS web site. If the layout of this information changes, this button may fail to work at all, or may deliver only partial results. Please report any problems with the behavior of this button to the author of the toolkit.

The following illustration shows a typical display of geographic information retrieved during a search of GNIS. The toolkit is able to convert the relevant parts of this display into a 670 field.

(The layout of the GNIS page changes from time to time. The above illustration may not show the current version. The toolkit is reworked to match each revised GNIS display.)

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Buttons that add fields to authority tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

To convert information found on GNIS into a 670 field, first display in the Vger cataloging client the authority record to which you wish to add a 670 field, then click the GNIS button. The toolkit will ask you to highlight the relevant text in the web page, and to use your web browser’s ‘copy’ function to copy the text to the Windows clipboard. When selecting the text in your browser, be sure to include all of the labels that accompany the text. (It’s OK if you include more information than the toolkit needs.)

The toolkit digests the text you supply, modifies the authority record, saves it to the Vger database, then re-opens the authority record in the Vger cataloging client. (If the toolkit is not able to create a 670 field, it gives you a brief explanation of the problem in its message area; but in any case you’ll need to create the 670 field yourself.)

If the selected text contains more than one set of longitude and latitude coordinates, the toolkit will ask which of them (if any) it should include in the 670 field. If the selected text identifies variant names, the toolkit will ask if it should use any of them to create 451 fields. (The toolkit will include all variants in the 670 field, even if not used as the basis for see reference tracings.)

After the toolkit presents you with the modified authority record, you should inspect the new 670 field and any new 451 fields for correctness and completeness. In a few cases, the toolkit will not be able to convert some of the selected information into a 670 field.

• Here is the 670 field created from the GNIS display shown above. In this example, the operator was queried about the longitude and latitude information (because more than one set of coordinates is given) and the operator elected not to include any of the coordinates in the 670 field.
• 
• The operator was also asked about the variant names listed in the GNIS display. In this example, the operator indicated that both variants were useful as reference tracings. The toolkit added 451 fields to the authority record. (The toolkit copies any parenthetical qualifier from the 151 field to each of the reference tracings.)
• 

5.5. Create a 670 field from GEOnet information

When building an authority record for a place not in the United States, you will often need to search GEOnet (full name: GeoNet Names Server, or GNS; also known as GeoNames), the Web site maintained by the US Board on Geographic Names. If you find information at this site, you will often want to preserve it in a 670 field in the authority record for the place. You can use the GeoN button to convert information found during a GEOnet search into a 670 field and perhaps also into see reference tracings.

The successful performance of this function depends on the layout of information at the GEOnet web site. If the layout of this information changes, this button may fail to work at all, or may deliver only partial results. Please report any problems with the behavior of this button to the author of the toolkit.

The following illustration shows a typical display of geographic information retrieved during a search of GEOnet. The toolkit is able to convert the relevant parts of this display into a 670 field.

Note about diacritics and the GEOnet site

One of the choices available on the GEOnet search page involves the method to use for displaying diacritics and special characters. Unfortunately, none of the available choices offers a perfect solution.

• Pushed Fonts: The screen display is correct, but the characters copied to the Windows clipboard do not follow a recognized standard, and cannot always be translated reliably into MARC equivalents.
• Unicode: The screen display is correct, but some diacritics are inexplicably stripped when you copy text to the Windows clipboard. Those characters that do arrive in the Windows clipboard can be translated reliably into MARC equivalents.
• No Diacritics: The screen display is not correct (all diacritics are omitted).

In other words, no matter which choice you make, if the text at the GEOnet site contains diacritics you are probably going to have to clean up the fields that the toolkit adds to the authority record.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Buttons that add fields to authority tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

To convert information found on GEOnet into a 670 field, first display in the Vger cataloging client the authority record to which you wish to add a 670 field, then click the GeoN button. The toolkit will ask you to highlight the relevant text in the web page, and to use your web browser’s ‘copy’ function to copy the text to the Windows clipboard. When selecting the text in your browser, be sure to include the labels that accompany the text, as instructed in the toolkit’s message. (It’s OK if you include more information than the toolkit needs.)

The toolkit digests the text you supply, modifies the authority record, saves it to the Vger database, then re-opens the authority record in the Vger cataloging client. (If the toolkit is not able to create a 670 field, it gives you a brief explanation of the problem in its message area; but in any case you’ll need to create the 670 field yourself.)

If the selected text identifies variant names, the toolkit will ask if it should use any of them to create 451 fields. (The toolkit will include all variants in the 670 field, even if not used as the basis for see reference tracings.)

After the toolkit presents you with the modified authority record, you should inspect the new 670 field and any new 451 fields for correctness and completeness.

• Here is the 670 field created from the GEOnet display shown above. Note that some of the diacritics will have to be added manually.
• 
• The operator was also asked about the variant names listed in the GEOnet display. In this example, the operator indicated that the second and third variants were useful as reference tracings. The toolkit included all three variants in the 670 field, and added 451 fields to the authority record for two of them. (The toolkit copies any parenthetical qualifier from the 151 field to each of the reference tracings.)
• 

5.6. Create a reference tracing from another authority record

In certain cases, you need to add a see reference tracing to an authority record, and the new reference tracing can be based on information in a second authority record. For example:

• You need to add a name/title see reference tracing to a series authority record, and the name portion is represented by a heading in another authority record
• You need to add a subordinate-name see reference tracing to a corporate name authority record, and the name of the main body is recorded in its own authority record
• You need to add a subordinate-title see reference tracing to a uniform title authority record, and the name of the main title is recorded in its own authority record

In such cases you can use the toolkit’s 4XX button to create the see reference tracing for you. The 4XX button does nothing that you could not do yourself with some typing and a series of copy-and-paste operations, but it saves you quite a few keystrokes.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the Buttons that add fields to authority tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

Before you click this button, you should display in the Vger cataloging client the authority record to which you wish to add a see reference tracing. When you click the 4XX button, the toolkit assumes that any authority record at the top of the record display stack in the Vger cataloging client is the authority record to which you wish to add the see reference tracing.

After you’ve shown the toolkit the first authority record (the record to which you wish to add a see reference tracing), the toolkit asks you to show it the second authority record. The second authority record is the record the toolkit will use as the base for the see reference tracing.

The toolkit can only add see reference tracings in certain circumstances.

• One authority record is a series, name/title or title authority record, and the other is a personal or corporate name authority record. The toolkit creates a name/title see reference tracing in the series, name/title or title authority record. (In this case, it doesn’t actually matter which authority record you supply first.)
• Both records are corporate name authority records. The toolkit creates a subordinate see reference tracing in the first authority record, using the body in the second authority record as the main part of the heading.
• Both records are uniform title authority records (maybe series, maybe not). The toolkit creates a subordinate see reference tracing in the first authority record, using the uniform title in the second authority record as the main part of the heading.

If you supply an improper combination of authority records, the toolkit will refuse to proceed. If you show the toolkit two authority records of the proper type, the toolkit will create a see reference tracing in the first record based on information in the second, and will re-display the modified authority record in the Vger cataloging client.

If the authority record’s reference evaluation byte (008/29) contains a code other than ‘a’ or ‘b’, the toolkit will change the code to ‘a’ when it adds the see reference tracing.

• Given this heading in a series authority record ...
• 
• ... and this corporate name heading ...
• 
• ... the toolkit will add this see reference tracing to the series authority record:
• 

5.7. Fill out the SACO proposal form

For reasons that remain obscure, participants in the LCSH subject authority cooperative (SACO) program cannot send the Library of Congress a MARC-format authority record when it is necessary to propose a new heading. Instead, participants must either fill out an online form available from the SACO Web site, or send the proposal as an e-mail text message. (Information in the Web form is converted at LC by program into a MARC authority record; it is not clear whether there is any automatic conversion of e-mail proposals.) Because a suitable authority record for the heading may already be present in the local library system, this means that catalogers must perform redundant data entry if they wish to participate in the SACO program.

The SACO button helps the cataloger convert an authority record in the Vger database into a SACO proposal. There are three possibilities: the toolkit can fill out the SACO proposal Web form for you; the toolkit can convert the authority record into a text display from which you can copy fields and paste them into the SACO proposal Web form; the toolkit can convert the authority record into an e-mail message and send it.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Information on the SACO button tab
• The first connection on the Connections tab
• Your e-mail address on the E-mail tab

What happens

To use this button, first create an authority record in Vger for the proposed subject heading. Save the completed authority record to your Vger database. While the Vger cataloging client still shows the finished authority record, click the toolkit’s SACO button. The toolkit absorbs information from the authority record. What happens next depends on the kind of proposal you have asked the toolkit to prepare.

If you have chosen to send the propsal via the Web form, the toolkit will recall the SACO proposal form in a Web browser. The toolkit will ask you to click the cursor into the ‘Today’s date’ box on the SACO form; the toolkit then fills out the form for you. You should look over the form to make sure everything is just as you want it; and then you click the appropriate button on the Web form to send the record on its way.

If you have chosen to fill out the Web proposal yourself, the toolkit will recall the SACO proposal form in a Web browser for you, and will then show you the authority record in a separate window. You can copy and paste information from this separate window into the Web form. When you’re all done, click the appropraite button on the Web form to send the record on its way.

If you have chosen to send the propsal via an e-mail message, the toolkit shows you the proposed message in a separate window. Carefully inspect the proposed message text. You can edit the text in the window (following the guidelines provided on the relevant SACO page) as necessary. When the message is to your liking, click the ‘OK’ button and the toolkit will e-mail the message for you. Click the ‘CANCEL’ button to tell the toolkit not to send any e-mail message.

6.1. Copy a record to the clipboard

This button allows you to put a version of the current Vger record, or just the record’s Vger number, into the Windows clipboard. You can then use standard Windows ‘paste’ functionality to copy the Vger record (or record number) into another application. This capability might be useful if you’re preparing documentation, and need to include all or part of a Vger record in a document.

You can use this button on authority, bibliographic, holdings and item records. If you tell the toolkit to copy the entire record, the toolkit ‘flattens’ MARC records so that each variable field is on a separate line; the Leader and 008 field appear as a labeled display. The toolkit presents item records (which are not MARC records to begin with) as a labeled display.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Settings specific to the Clipboard button
• The first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

When you click this button, the toolkit retrieves from the Vger cataloging client the number and type of the current record. If you’ve asked for the complete record, the toolkit retrieves this record from Vger, formats the record as instructed on the Options panel, and copies this formatted record to the Windows clipboard.

• Given a bibliographic record like this:
• 
• ... the toolkit will produce a display like this (shown here pasted into an empty Notepad document):
• 

6.2. Create 501 fields (‘with’ notes)

The 501 button allows you to build 501 fields (‘with’ notes) in bibliographic records.⁷⁵ To use this button, you call up each bibliographic record to be linked with ‘with’ notes, and tell the toolkit to add information about this record to a list. When the list contains all of the items to be linked, you ask the toolkit to build the finished notes.

Throughout this section, reference is made to the ‘501’ field. One of the choices available on the Options panel relates to the tag of this field. If you have chosen some tag other than 501 for the ‘With’ note, you should mentally change references to the tag ‘501’ in this section to your chosen tag.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Everything on the 501 tab.
• The the first connection defined on the Connections tab.

What happens

Begin the creation of 501 fields by calling up in the Vger cataloging client the bibliographic recored for the first item in the collection and clicking the toolkit’s 501 button. The toolkit digests information from this record and puts it into a small window.

This little window has its own menu.

• Cancel: Abandon current work
• Pick up new item: Add the bibliographic record showing in the Vger cataloging client to the list
• Delete item: Remove the highlighted item from the list
• Create notes: Add 501 fields to the records in the list, and clear the list
• Call # search: Find all bibliographic records whose holdings records have the same call number as the call number in the holdings record attached to the first item in the list.⁷⁶
• Save list: Write the current list to a file. The next time you start the process of building 501 fields (i.e., the next time you click the toolkit’s 501 button when this little panel isn’t already visible) the toolkit will prime this list with these same entries. The toolkit clears this file whenever you select the ‘Create notes’ menu choice.

Once you’ve identified the first item in the collection, your remaining task is to identify the other items in the collection. You have two choices.

• Call up the next item in the collection, and either click the 501 button again, or select this little window’s ‘Pick up new item’ menu choice. Proceed in this manner with the other items (if any) in the series: call up each in the Vger cataloging client, and add it to this list.
• Select the ‘Call # search’ menu item. The toolkit finds the call number for the first item in the list, and searches Vger for bibibliographic records whose holdings records have exactly the same call number. The toolkit lists matching bibliographic records on this form. The toolkit adds new items in order by the Vger bibliographic record number⁷⁷.

The toolkit will not add to this list as the second or subsequent member a bibliographic record that already bears a ‘With’ note for the first member in the list.

If you accidentally add the wrong record to this list, highlight the line for that record and click the ‘Delete item’ menu choice.

If you need to change the order of items, highlight an item in the list and use the ‘v’ and ‘^’ buttons to move the item down and up.

When the list is as you wish it:

1. If you want the toolkit to add the text ‘Bound together subsequent to publication’ to the last 501 field it creates in a record, check the ‘Bound together subsequent to publication’ box.
2. If the list of items does not contain the last item in the collection (e.g., if the toolkit refuses to allow you to add any more items to the list), check the ‘Work not yet complete’ box. After the toolkit builds the 501 fields for everything in the list, it will retain the first item in this list, so you can find additional items and build 501 fields for them as well. (The toolkit will not allow you to add more than 75 items to the list. If you attempt to exceed this limit, the toolkit will check this box for you automatically. If your collection contains more than 75 items, you will have to work with them in batches of 75.)
3. If you do not wish the toolkit to open bibliographic records after it has added 501 fields to them, check the ‘Do not reopen’ box. If this box is not checked, the toolkit will re-open each modified bib record in the Vger cataloging client.
4. Click the ‘Create 501s’ menu choice. The toolkit retrieves the bibliographic record for the second and each subsequent item in the list, and adds to it a 501 field that describes the first item in the list. The toolkit then calls up the record for the first item in the list and adds to it a 501 field that describes all of the other items in the list. As it does this work, the toolkit opens the modified records in the Vger cataloging client unless you’ve asked it not to do so.

When the toolkit has finished its work:

• If you checked the ‘Work not yet complete’ box, the toolkit removes all items from the list except the first. You can proceed with additional items in the collection.
• If you did not check the ‘Work not yet complete’ box, the toolkit hides the 501 form. If you click the toolkit’s 501 button again, the list will be empty.

Important things to know about the 501 button

• When the toolkit creates 501 fields, it uses information in each record at the moment the toolkit adds the field, not as the record appeared when you added information about the record to the list. You can modify records as necessary subsequent to adding them to the list and save the records to the Vger database, confident that the notes built by the toolkit will reflect your changes.
• The 501 field built for the first item in the list is ‘additive:’ if the bibliographic record already contains a 501 field, the toolkit will add more information to it, rather than create a new 501 field.
• If the 501 field for the first item in the list grows to a length of more than 3200 characters, the toolkit will create multiple 501 fields as necessary, retaining up to about 3000 characters in each field. The toolkit tries to divide the 501 field between items.
• The 501 field built for the second and subsequent items in the list is not additive. The toolkit will remove any 501 fields that may be present in these record before adding the new (replacement) 501 field.
• Even if you’ve told the toolkit not to re-open modified bibliograhpic records, the toolkit will reopen the bibliographic record for the first item in the list if you’ve checked the ‘Work not yet complete’ box.

6.3. Review a list of records

From time to time, you may use one tool or another to produce a list of record numbers of Vger records that need review. For example, you may use an SQL statement in Microsoft Access™ or Northwestern’s VgerSele to produce a list of holdings records whose call numbers fall within a given range. You can also use any tool at your disposal to generate a list of bibliographic or authority 010s of interest.

If you have such a list of Vger authority, bibliographic, holdings or item record numbers, or authority or bibliographic 010s, you can hand the list over to the toolkit’s VIEW RECORDS IN A LIST button. The button will call up each record for you, and you can take whatever follow-up action may be appropriate. The button saves you the trouble of typing in the number for each record you need to review, but the button doesn’t actually help you do anything with the record.

You can use this button to review any type of Vger record you can call up via the Vger cataloging client: authority, bibliographic holdings, or item. The only restriction is that all of the records in the source file have to be of the same type—you can’t mix holdings and item record numbers, and you can’t mix authority and bibliographic 010s, for example. In most cases, the file of record numbers will be a plain text file; if you open the file with the Windows Notepad and it looks like a plain list of record numbers, the toolkit will be able to use it. You can also feed the program a file containing extracted Vger records in MARC format. (These records must have the Vger control number in the 001 field.)

To review a set of records (once you’ve generated the file of record numbers), click the VIEW RECORDS IN A LIST button. You should have the Vger cataloging client running, and not minimized, before you click this button. The toolkit shows you a dialog box similar to the following. You need to identify the file, and tell the toolkit about it.

Use the ‘Browse’ button to find the file of record numbers. Click the radio button that corresponds to the type of record numbers contained in the file (authority, bibliographic, holdings or item record numbers; MARC records; authority or bibliogrphic 010s).

The choices in the ‘If file contains Vger record numbers, help the toolkit find the Vger record number’ box let you tell the toolkit about your file of record numbers. In most cases, you’ll be feeding the toolkit a file that contains nothing but Vger record numbers; in this case, select the radio button labeled ‘First contiguous string of numerals in each line.’ This means that the record number is the first thing in each line of the file. (The line may contain additional text following the record number.) In rare cases, the Vger record number may be embedded within a line, preceded by some constant piece of text. If this is the case, click the ‘Contained within line, preceded by label’ radio button, and give in the box the text that precedes the Vger record number in every line of the file.

When you click the ‘OK’ button, the toolkit opens your file, finds the first record number, opens the first record in the Vger cataloging client, and opens a little window that allows you to control your work with the records in the file.

The ‘|<’, ‘<’, ‘>’ and ‘>|’ buttons move you to the beginning of the list of records, to the previous record, to the next record, and to the last record, respectively. The two ‘Skip’ buttons allow you to move backwards and forwards a large number of records. (The default size of the skip interval depends on the number of lines in the file of record numbers.) The ‘Save list from this point to end’ button allows you to re-save the list of records from the current point to the end, so you can pick up tomorrow where you leave off today. Finally, the Options button allows you to change the arrangement of the buttons on the form.

If a line in the source file contains text other than the record number itself, the toolkit puts the text into the window on this form. For example:

• If a line in the source file contains “123456 check 008/13: should be ‘c’?”, the toolkit will retrieve record 123456 and put the text “check 008/13: should be ‘c’?” into the text box
• If a line in the source file contains ‘Invalid check-digit in ISBN 0123456783 Voyager 234567 should be 012345678X?’ and you’ve told the toolkit that the Vger record number is contained within a line in a line preceded by the text ‘Voyager’, the toolkit will retrieve record 234567 and put the text ‘Invalid check-digit in ISBN 0123456783 should be 012345678X?’ into the text box.

The text box is empty if the only thing in a line from the source file is a number.

The toolkit will tell you when you reach the end of your file. The toolkit does not modify the source file of numbers unless you click the ‘Save list from this point to end’ button.

6.4. Convert a series from not traced to traced, or from traced to not traced

You may discover that an authority record indicates that a series should be traced, yet your database contains one or more bibliographic records in which the series is not traced; or you may decide that a series formerly not traced should now be traced, and one or more bibliographic records require attention. Use one of the toolkit’s 490/830 buttons whenever you wish the toolkit to change a series in a bibliographic record from ‘not traced ’ to ‘traced’, or from ‘traced’ to ‘not traced’. To use either of these buttons, your Vger database must contain an authority record for the series.

The two buttons perform similar actions, with one important difference. Use the button with a border around it if you wish to change a group of bibliographic records all at once. Use the button without a border if you wish to change individual bibliographic records. The button with the border can save you a lot of tedious clicking if you are certain that a group of records can be changed safely; the button without the border gives you full control over each record to be changed.

The 490/830 tab on the toolkit’s Options panel controls this button’s behavior.

Convert a series from traced to not traced

The toolkit’s 490/830 button with a border around it functions as a ‘batch correction’ button to change a series from traced to not traced. To change all occurrences of a series in your database from traced to not traced, open the authority record for the not-traced series in the Vger cataloging client and click this button. The toolkit absorbs information from the authority record and then immediately does a search for bibliographic records that contain the record’s 1XX field as a series heading. The toolkit will change each matching 440 field to a 490 field with first indicator ‘0’; it will delete each matching 8XX field and change the first indicator in the corresponding 490 field from ‘1’ to ‘0’. You cannot use the toolkit for any other work while it is batch-converting a series to not traced, but you can do other work with the Vger cataloging client.

If the toolkit finds bibliographic records in your database that contain the indicated series heading plus additional information (qualifiers, subseries, etc.) the toolkit will show you a message before it undertakes any work. You should carefully examine the bibliographic records before allowing the toolkit to proceed. After the toolkit has finished its work, you should search Vger for the series heading again, to make sure there are no leftovers for you to clean up on your own.

The toolkit’s 490/830 button without a border around it is a ‘one record at a time’ button. Use this button when you need to exercise full control over the bibliographic records that are changed. (Some bibliographic records may have the wrong series added entry.) To use this button, open the authority record for the not-traced series in the Vger cataloging client and click this button. Do a search in the Vger cataloging client for the series, and click this button again when the client is displaying a bibliographic record you wish the toolkit to change.

Convert a series from not traced to traced

Using the 490/830 buttons to convert a series from not traced is a two-step process: you show the toolkit the authority record for the series, then you show the toolkit the bibliographic records that contain the not-traced series. (Because the series are not traced, and the toolkit has no access to the Vger keyword indexes, you must find the records yourself, and show them to the toolkit.) One of these buttons has a border around the caption, the other does not. Both buttons start out by looking at authority records in exactly the same way, so you can begin the process of converting a series from not traced to traced by clicking either button when the cataloging client shows an authority record. The border, or its absence, marks an important difference between the two buttons in the handling of bibliographic records.

• The 490/830 button without a border works on one bibliographic record at a time. After you show the toolkit the authority record, you open one bibliographic record and click this button. The toolkit corrects just that one bibliographic record. You then call up the next bibliographic record for the series and click the button again; the toolkit changes that one record. Use this button when you need to examine each bibliographic record before turning the toolkit loose. For example, your search may retrieve series with the same title from many different publishers; you may need to examine each record before deciding that its series should be converted to match the authority record.
• The 490/830 button with a border converts a batch of bibliographic records all at once, without pausing for your approval. You open all of the bibliographic records that need to be changed (you can open as many as the Vger cataloging client will allow you to open) and then click this button; the toolkit inspects each record and changes it as appropriate. Only use this button when you are certain that the series in all of the bibliographic records you’ve opened in the cataloging client need to be converted. Do not use your computer’s keyboard or mouse, or interfere with your computer in any way, while the toolkit is converting a series in group of bibliographic records from not traced to traced. You can’t even use another program while the toolkit is processing this group of records. Hands off your computer until you see the message ‘Done’ in the toolkit’s message area below the last row of buttons.

You can use these buttons to convert simple series headings (i.e., series headings that consist only of a ‘main series’). You can also use these buttons to convert series headings that contain a subseries, but do not use these buttons for main series plus a subseries if you need separate added entries for the main series alone and the main series plus the subseries.⁷⁸ Do not use these buttons if information (such as ‘new series’) needs to be moved in some (but not all) circumstances from the numbering to the heading, or vice versa.

When converting a series from not traced to traced, the change the buttons make depends on circumstances, and will even vary from one bibliographic record to the next within a given series. The following are general guides.

• If the series heading is a title heading and if the text of the 490 field corresponds to the established series heading, the toolkit will retag the 490 field as a 440. The toolkit should be able correctly to deal with initial articles.
• If the series heading is a title heading and if the text of the 490 field does not match the established series heading, the toolkit will change the first indicator of the 490 field from zero to one and add an 830 field.
• If the series heading is not a title heading, the toolkit will in every case change the first indicator of the 490 field from zero to one and add an 8XX field, even if the text in the 490 field matches the series heading.
• In some cases, you will be able to choose whether to keep a title series as a 440 field, or use a 490/830 pair of fields.

To use these buttons effectively to change a series from not traced to traced, you’re going to need to be able to find the bibliographic records that contain the series in a 490 field. The toolkit can find 490 fields when presented with a bibliographic record, but it can’t itself do the search to find the records. The most reliable way to find bibliographic records that contain a not-traced series (perhaps the only way available to all Vger customers) is with a keyword search.⁷⁹

• It’s useful to to define a keyword index consisting of 490 subfield $a, so you can to restrict a search to records that contain a word or phrase only as an untraced series. You might want to include 490 subfields $x and $v in the index, too. For historical reasons, you may wish to include 500 field subfield $a.⁸⁰ Subfield $f of the 533 field and subfield $f of the 534 field are also useful things to have in the keyword index of not-traced series.
• It’s also handy to have a keyword index for series traced differently. You’ll include every bibliographic 8XX subfield in this index.

Use the SysAdmin client to define these keyword searches. You may well decide that both of these indexes should be suppressed from the OPAC.

You start the process of changing a series from not-traced to traced by calling up the authority record for the series in the Vger cataloging client. Make any changes to the authority record that seem appropriate, and save the record. When the authority record is in its final form, click either of the toolkit’s 490/830 buttons. The toolkit retrieves the authority record from Vger and extracts information from it for future use. (The toolkit retains information concerning this authority record until you click one of the 490/830 buttons again when the Vger cataloging client shows an authority record.) The toolkit digests the authority record’s 1XX field and each of the 4XX fields into an internal table; the toolkit also saves subfield $a of the first 642 field (series numbering example). If the 1XX field in the authority record ends with a full stop, the toolkit asks whether or not the full stop is an integral part of the heading. (If the full stop is not an integral part of the heading, the toolkit modifies the authority record to remove the full stop, and re-opens the authority record.)

When the toolkit has finished its examination of the authority record, it shows the series heading, or at least the first part of it, in the frame underneath the last row of buttons. You can also see the current heading at any time by resting the mouse pointer over either of the 490/830 buttons.

Once you’ve shown the toolkit the authority record for the series, you need to do a search to find bibliographic records that contain the series. The button you press after you’ve done the search depends on your perception of conditions.

• If you’re absolutely certain that it’s safe to hand a set of records over to the program and let it work all by itself, open all of the records in the cataloging client (or, of there’s a lot of them, as many as the cataloging client can handle), then click the 490/830 button with a border. The toolkit inspects the first record and changes it as appropriate. If there is no problem, the toolkit closes this record and inspects the next one; and proceeds in this manner through the bibliographic records opened in the cataloging client until it runs out of records, or encounters something other than a bibliographic record, or hits a severe problem. If there are more records to convert, you can open another group, and press the button with a border again.
• If you suspect that you need to look at each bibliographic record before turning the toolkit loose on it, click the 490/830 button with no a border when the Vger cataloging client displays a bibliographic record. The toolkit inspects this one record, changes it as appropriate, and closes it if there is no problem.

The program for changing bibliographic records that lies behind these buttons is quite complicated. (The program logic for working with an individual bibliographic record is identical for both buttons.) There are many points at which the toolkit might have to pause to ask for your assistance. Some of these queries are in the form of simple yes/no questions; others require you to supply more information. The most severe of these latter cases involve the matter of series numbering. When the program looks over the authority record for the series, it saves the numbering pattern from the first 642 field.

The toolkit expects every series statement in bibliographic records to have numbering in the form specified by the authority record. (For example, if the series numbering example is ‘v. 5’, the toolkit will accept ‘v. 17’ or ‘v. 18-19’ or ‘v. 16, etc.’ but it will not accept without question ‘no. 12’ or ‘18.’) If the bibliographic record contains variant numbering (or other text in the 490 field beyond the end of the heading proper), the toolkit opens a window and asks what should happen next. In the example shown in the following illustration, the authority record contains the series numbering example ‘no. 12’ and the bibliographic record contains the numbering ‘2nd ser., no. 1.’

• If the text in the box is indeed series numbering, you can touch it up as necessary to match the series numbering example or otherwise get it into the form you want. You can tell the toolkit to retain the series heading as a 440 field, or to keep the series statement as a 490 field and make a new 8XX field, by selecting the appropriate radio button. (You will not always be offered this choice—sometimes the toolkit will insist on the 490/830 pattern.) If you wish the toolkit to make the same change to the numbering in other 490 fields that follow the same pattern, you can check the ‘Apply to all’ box. (Sometimes, the toolkit will make this decision for you, and this box will not be available to you.)
• If the text in the box (or part of that text) is the subtitle for the series rather than series numbering, move the text into the ‘Subtitle’ box. The toolkit will add a 667 field identifying the subtitle to the authority record; if other bibliographic records have the same series and subtitle, the toolkit will immediately recognize the subtitle and act accordingly.
• If the text in the box is neither series numbering nor subtitle (the name of a series editor, for example), clear the text from both boxes.

When this dialog panel reflects the handling of the numbering (or other text) you wish the toolkit to follow, click the ‘OK’ button. If you want the toolkit to cease working on this bibliographic record, click the ‘Cancel’ button instead.

If you click the ‘OK’ button and the toolkit has the information it needs, it changes the bibliographic record as appropriate and closes the record in the Vger cataloging client. The toolkit shows you the bibliographic record’s number in the message area below its bottom row of buttons. (If you’re using the 490/830 button with a border to change a group of records, the toolkit won’t show you the completed record number because it will immediately move on to the next record.) If you wish to see the modified record, you can call it up in the Vger cataloging client when the toolkit has finished its work.

How the toolkit finds a not-traced series in a bibliographic record

The following paragraphs should give additional understanding of the basic procedure the toolkit uses to find series statements in bibliographic records, and change them. If you are unsure how the toolkit is going to handle a series, the best thing to do is to have the toolkit perform the work on one bibliographic record, then call up the bibliographic record and see what happened to it. If the series you attempt to convert is within the button’s design limitations, you’ll probably be surprised how well the toolkit copes with your heading.

The toolkit looks for bibliographic 490 and (for historical reasons) 500 fields that match information in the authority record. The toolkit considers 490 fields with first indicator ‘zero’ or ‘blank’; it also considers 490 fields with first indicator ‘one’ if there are no 8XX fields in the bibliographic record. If the bibliograhpic record contains the same series in both a traced field (4XX or 8XX) and a 490 field with first indicator ‘zero’, the toolkit won’t try to modify the bibliographic record. The toolkit isolates series numbering in subfield $v and the ISSN (in subfield $x, or in subfield $a when preceded by the text ‘ISSN’). The toolkit compares this extracted information against the 1XX and each 4XX in the authority record. (The toolkit compares authority fields in descending order by length of the field.)

If the 490 field exactly matches a heading found in an authority record, the program handles the heading on its own. If the 490 field contains a field from the authority record plus additional text, but the matching point is not at the first character of the 490 field, the toolkit considers the test to the left of the match point to be an ‘initial article’. If this text is in the toolkit’s small internal table of articles, the toolkit retains the series in a 440 field and sets the nonfiling characters indicator as appropriate; otherwise, it creates a new 8XX field. For example:

• If the 490 field contains:
• The foundations of modern history
• ... and the toolkit is looking for this series:
• Foundations of modern history
• ... the toolkit will change the 490 tag to 440 and set the nonfiling characters indicator to ‘4’

• If the 490 field contains:
• On cover: Problems and documents
• ... and the toolkit is looking for this series:
• Problems and documents
• ... the toolkit will change the 490 field’s first indicator to ‘one’ and add an 830 field for the series heading

If the 490 field contains a field from an authority record within it, but the 490 field contains text beyond the authority heading, the toolkit considers this text to be ‘numbering’. If the pattern of this numbering matches the pattern of the series numbering example in the authority record, the toolkit moves the numbering to subfield $v; otherwise, it asks you what it should do with the text. For example:

• If the 490 field contains:
• Witnesses of Spain. Historical series ; no. 4
• ... and the established series heading is:
• Witnesses of Spain. $p Historical series
• ... and the series numbering example is:
• no. 2
• ... the toolkit will change the tag to 440, and change the field in this manner without asking for your approval:
• Witnesses of Spain. $p Historical series ; $v no. 4

• If the 490 field contains:
• Anglistica & Americana, no. 86
• ... and the established series heading is:
• Anglistica & Americana
• ... and the series numbering example is:
• 185
• ... the toolkit will ask you what it should do with the series numbering. Your most likely course of action will be to tell the toolkit to keep the 490 field (with first indicator ‘one’) and create an 8XX field. In the new 8XX field the toolkit should change the numbering to ‘86’. Finally, you’ll probably tell the toolkit to apply the same change to other headings with numbering in the same state. (So that if the toolkit later encounters ‘Anglistica & Americana, no. 91’ it will make parallel 490/8XX modifications without asking first.)

6.5. Edit the fixed fields (FFD button)

This button allows you to edit the ‘fixed fields’ in a bibliographic, holdings or authority record. The fixed fields are the Leader, 006, 007 and 008 fields. You can also use this button to add and remove 006 and 007 fields. The advantage of this button over similar features offered by the Vger cataloging client is that you can directly change codes of interest, without necessarily consulting a menu of options. In most cases, this button will save you time and trouble, if you need to change more than one code in the fixed fields.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Everything on the Fixed field editor tab. (This tab only allows you to change the fixed field editor’s colors; you can safely leave these at their default values, unless you find them objectionable, or illegible.)
• The owning library on the General tab
• The ‘Write UID’ and ‘Write PWD’ for the first connection on the Connections tab

In addition, this program assumes that the following three files are present in the folder named in the ‘Files of validation rules’ box on the File locations tab of options for the BAM button.

FfdStanzas.cfg. If this file isn’t present, this probably means that the file VITagTableC.cfg isn’t there, either. These are not files you can modify directly; the toolkit creates both of these files (if they’re not present) when you click the BAM button. To create these two files, make sure that VITagTableC.cfg is not there, then simply click the BAM button. (The toolkit will appear to be stuck for a moment as it reads through your entire set of Vger tag table files and prepares its digested form.) If you change your Vger tag tables, delete VITagTableC.cfg, start up the toolkit and click the BAM button; the toolkit will re-create these files.

FfdLabels.cfg. This file defines the fixed-field elements the toolkit will present for editing, and the labels it will use when presenting them. The toolkit recognizes nine different layouts for the 008 field in a record; these constitute the nine MARC ‘formats’ the toolkit recognizes. Each format is identified by a single upper-case letter:

• A: authority
• B: ‘books’: printed monographs
• D: electronic resources, computer files
• F: visual materials; videos and films
• H: holdings
• M: music; scores and sound recordings
• P: cartographic materials
• S: serials
• U: archival materials

There are stanzas in this file for the elements in the leader of each format, and for the 008 field in each format. The names of these stanzas are ‘Leader’ or ‘008’ plus the format code plus the word ‘Labels’; so the stanza describing elements in the leader for authority records is called LeaderALabels, and the stanza describing elements in the 008 field for holdings records is called 008Hlabels.

Within each stanza, each element to be presented by the fixed field editor is given as a separate line. The label to be used when presenting the element is first on the line, followed by an equals sign. To the right of the equals sign are two numbers; the first gives (in the zero-based form used in MARC documentation) the starting position of the element, the second the length of the element. If an element should be displayed but should not be subject to operator modification, follow the label with an asterisk. To keep the display as compact as possible, the default element labels are very brief, but they can be longer if you wish; they can be several words if you want. The labels are also in upper-case to make them easy to distinguish from the code that follows, but this is also just the convention used in the supplied default file.

Here is a typical stanza:

• [LeaderALabels]
• STAT*=5 1
• RT=6 1
• CDG=9 1
• E/LVL=17 1
• In the authority format, the 5th byte of the leader (the 6th position) is displayed with the label STAT, the 6th byte (the 7th character) with the label RT, the 9th byte (the 10th character) with the label CDG and the 17th byte (the 18th character) with the label E/LVL. All of these elements are 1 character long.

There are two more stanzas, called 006Names and 007Names, that give information about the 006 and 007 fields. To the left of the equals sign in each line of the 006Names stanza is the single-character code used in byte 0 (the first character) of an 006 field. To the right of the equals sign are the single-character code of the corresponding bibliographic format, the name of the 006 field, and the default value used for a new field of that type. (The last two elements are separated from each other by a double slash.) In the default value, use the underscore for blank spaces, and the vertical bar for the fill character. The 007Names stanza has the same format as the 006Names stanza, except that it does not contain the single-character code for the corresponding bibliographic format. The fixed-field editor uses the labels defined for the 008 field to display elements in an 006 field. Each different 007 field has a stanza that describes its elements. The names of these stanzas are ‘007’ plus the code that appears in byte 0 (the first character) of the field; the contents of the stanzas are identical in form with those of the stanzas for the leader and 008 field.

FfdStanzasOverride.cfg. When using the fixed-field editor, you can press the F1 or F2 key to see a list of values allowed for any fixed-field element. The toolkit draws this list directly from your Vger tag table files; but in some cases, those files don’t show the actual codes. For example, the Vger tag tables do not list every valid year that may appear in Date 1 or Date 2, but simply contain the code <<<TEXT>>>. The FfdStanzasOverride.cfg allows you to provide a piece of text describing the contents of a fixed field element to be displayed instead of values from the Vger tag tables.

There may be stanzas in this file for each of the 007 formats and each of the 008 formats; the name of each stanza is the code appearing in byte 0 for 007 fields or the single-letter code given above for the 008 format, followed by the tag itself. Each line in the stanza constists of a numeral to the left of the equals sign, and a message to the right. The numeral is the starting position (using the zero-based convention found in the MARC documentation) of one fixed field element whose values are not given properly in the Vger tag tables.

What happens

When you click this button, the toolkit obtains from the Vger cataloging client the number and type of the current record. The toolkit retrieves a fresh copy of this record from Vger, and hands it over to the component that makes possible the editing of fixed fields. ⁸¹ This component displays the fixed fields from this record in a small panel. The following illustration shows a typical example.

Each field in the record (Leader, 008, etc.) is shown in a different group; alternating field groups have different background colors to make them easier to distinguish. Each defined element in each field is displayed with a brief alphabetic prefix. (You can change these prefixes by changing a configuration file, if you can’t easily tell what is intended.) The color of each element reflects its status. (The default colors are: gray if you can’t actually modify the element, black if the element’s code is valid, red if the element’s code is not valid, and green if the element’s code is obsolete.)

To change a fixed-field code, click the cursor on either the code or its label, and type the code you want. Changing one code automatically advances the cursor to the next box. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move from one field to another, and the tab/reverse tab keys to move from one element to another. If you aren’t sure what codes are available in an element, you can put the cursor on a code and then press the F2 key. (The F1 key does the same thing.) You’ll see a tiny panel naming the code and providing a drop-down list of valid codes. (This tiny panel will appear over the currently-highlighted code.)

To add a whole new 006 or 007 field, select the type of field in which you’re interested from the panel’s menu, and modify the codes as appropriate. (The default values for each type of 006 and 007 field are in one of the configuration files, which you can of course change as you wish.) You can’t add an 006 field to a record if it’s of the same ‘type’ as the basic record itself. (For example, you can’t add a ‘book’ 006 to a ‘book’ record.)

To delete an 006 or 007 field, place the cursor anywhere in the field, then click the ‘Delete’ menu choice. (You can’t delete the leader or the 008 field.)

If you wish to make any one of the 006 or 007 fields the first field of that type, place the cursor anywhere in the field, and then click the ‘Make first’ menu choice.

When you’re all done working with the fixed fields, click the ‘OK’ menu choice (or, if you’ve enabled this on the Options panel, press the Enter key) to save your work. Click the ‘Cancel’ menu choice (or, if you’ve enabled this on the Options panel, press the Escape key) to abandon your work on the fixed fields.

6.6. Divide a long field into pieces

The DIVIDE LONG FIELD button lets you split long fields in a bibliographic record (such as long contents notes) into two pieces. (The Vger cataloging client has problems displaying and allowing you to edit long fields.)

To split a field in a record into two pieces, click this button when the Vger cataloging client displays a bibliographic record. The toolkit examines the record, and shows you a window listing each field in the record that is longer than an arbitrary length, and whose tag is defined as repeatable.

Click the cursor in the long field at the point at which you wish to split it, and click the ‘OK’ button. The toolkit will modify the record as you instruct, save it to the Vger database, and open the modified record in the Vger cataloging client. If the text for the new field as found in the original field doesn’t begin with a subfield code, the toolkit begins the new field with $a.

6.7. Export a record as MARC or XML

The EXPORT buttons allow you to send the record displayed by the Vger cataloging client to an export file. During the export, the toolkit can transform the record in a number of ways; if you export a bibliographic record, the toolkit can also include information from associated holdings records. There are two buttons, allowing you to maintain two separate configurations at a time. (You might define one button for MARC export, and another for XML export; or one for MARC export for OCLC, another for MARC export for a vendor.)

Configuration points to consider

The Export to disk tab on the tookit’s Options panel controls the behavior of these buttons. From the ‘Button details’ tab, click the export button you wish to configure. The toolkit maintains two separate configurations, one for each export button.

What happens

When you click an export button, the toolkit gets the number of the current record from the Vger cataloging client and pulls the current version of that record from the Vger database. The toolkit transform the record as necessary (perhaps converting the character set for MARC output; or applying the selected schema for XML output) and saves it to the folder (and, as appropriate, file name) indicated in the button’s configuration. The toolkit shows a message in its status area when it has finished its work. The operation should take a second or less.

6.8. Load a file of records; merge records

The MERGE button allows you to do to two rather different things, not necessarily involving the merging of two records. (The capabilities originally intended for this button have been expanded over time.)

• You can open a file of records, which the toolkit will read into a special split-panel display. The toolkit will use searches on standard numbers in this record (ISBN, LCCN, etc.) to look for corresponding records in your Vger database.
• You can pull records from the Vger cataloging client into the same split-panel display.

The following illustration shows the toolkit’s ‘merge’ panel, before any records have been loaded into it. The left side of this panel will contain ‘source’ records—records from which you want to extract information. Source records may be read from a file, or from your Vger database. The right side of this form will contain ‘target’ records—records into which you want to copy information from source records. Target records are always records found in your Vger database.

If you load a file of records from some file, the left side lists these records, and shows you them one at a time. The right side shows the records in your local database that match the record on the left side. If the import file contains more than one record, the box in the upper left corner lists them all; you can move from one import record to another by highlighting each line in turn. If a record in the import file matches records in your Vger database, the box in the upper right corner lists them, and identifies the tag of the matching field; you can move from one matching record to another by highlighting each line in turn.

The following illustration shows the toolkit’s split panel ‘merge’ display while some work with this button is in progress. The operator has loaded an import file into the left side, and the toolkit has found matches for one of them. The box at upper left lists the records from the import file; the larger box on the left shows details of the highlighted record. The box at upper right lists records found in the Vger database that appear to match the record on the left side;⁸² the larger box on the right shows details of the highlighted record found in the Vger database.

Configuration points to keep in mind

This button depends on the following information on the Options panel:

• Everything on the Merge tab. (This tab only allows you to change the fixed field editor’s colors; you can safely leave these at their default values, unless you find them objectionable, or illegible.)
• The owning library on the General tab
• The ‘Write UID’ and ‘Write PWD’ for the first connection on the Connections tab

What happens

When you click this button, the toolkit shows you its ‘merge records’ display. What happens after that is under your control. The first thing you need to accomplish is getting one or more records into the left side of the panel.

• To load a file of records from some source, click the ‘Load import file’ button. The toolkit will offer you a standard find-the-file dialog. If you select a file, the toolkit will clear the display, list each record from the file in the box at upper left, and perform duplicate detection (using criteria you have established) for each item. (The file you load may contain bibliographic, authority or holdings records, or any mixture of these record types.) When finished, the toolkit will highlight the first item in the list, which will cause the right side of the display to show any records in Vger that match this record.
• If you wish to use a record in the Vger database as a source record, click the ‘Pick up record from Vger’ button on the left side. The toolkit will retrieve the record currently shown in the cataloging client, and add it to the list on the left side, as if the record had been read from an input file. If you have already opened a file of records, the toolkit acts as if this Vger record were another record read from that input file. The toolkit does not do any duplicate detection for records picked up from Vger in this manner.

Once you have populated the left side of the toolkit’s merge panel with records (from a file, from Vger, or some combination of these), and perhaps populated the right side with matches found in your Vger database as well, you can do various things. You cannot directly modify the records displayed on this panel by typing, etc. The buttons distributed around the panel allow you to interact with and