The cataloger’s toolkit for Vger

2.10.1. Updating an existing installation

Note the following points if your workstation already contains some version of the cataloger’s toolkit:

• Follow the general instructions given here for downloading and running the correct installation program
• You do not need to un-install the old toolkit before installing a new version
• The toolkit stores its options in a configuration file; all of your existing settings will be preserved when you install the new version
• After installing the new version, you should select any new buttons you wish to add to your active toolbar
• After installing the new version, you should examine the options for all of the buttons you use. (Not because your old choices will have been obliterated, but because there may be new things for you to select.)

2.10.2. Install and configure ODBC

Before you install the toolkit, you should install the ODBC drivers for Oracle, and define an ODBC data source for your Vger installation. This document does not describe the installation of ODBC drivers, or their configuration. Look for information about ODBC on Endeavor’s Support Web or in the manual for the Vger reporter client.

2.10.3. Get the toolkit’s installation program

You’ll find the installation program for the toolkit at Northwestern University Library’s HTTP site. There is a separate version of the toolkit’s installation program for each build of Vger. You must use the toolkit installation program that exactly matches your version of Vger. Or, to put it more precisely, you must use the toolkit installation program that exactly matches your version of the Vger ‘BatchCat’ interface. Instructions at the HTTP site will help you figure out which toolkit version is right for your version of Vger.³ When you install a new version of Vger—even just a patch to an existing version—you should check the BatchCat version number, and make sure you have the correct version of the toolkit

The cataloger’s toolkit is updated frequently—often several times a week. You should form the habit of periodically checking Northwestern’s HTTP site for updates, and always use the most recent version.⁴ It often happens that installing a new version of one program from Northwestern will bring with it updates to modules shared by other Northwestern programs, which means that programs installed earlier suddenly won't start. If this happens, you’ll need to install updated versions of those other programs, too.

Before you download the ZIP file that contains the installation program, you should delete any copy of the same ZIP file you may already have on your computer. Some Web browsers appear to download files and overwrite them, but they don’t actually do so; you end up with the same version of the ZIP file you started with. In addition, you should delete any copies of the three files contained within the installation ZIP file (see the next paragraph) before you un-ZIP the file you have downloaded. Some un-ZIP programs appear to overwrite previous versions of files, but don’t actually do so.

To summarize: To install the toolkit, you need to delete any existing instalation files, download the correct ZIP file from Northwestern University Library’s HTTP site, and un-ZIP the file. You can put the ZIP file and the un-ZIPped files into any folder that seems convenient to you. When you’ve done all this, you should have the following three files, and you should be ready to install:

• setup.exe
• setup.lst
• CTK.CAB

2.10.4. Run the toolkit’s installation program

Cancel the toolkit, and all other programs from Northwestern University Library, before running the installation program.

Start the program setup.exe and follow the prompts. This will move modules into the proper places, and create entries for them in the Windows Registry.

The installation program creates an entry for the toolkit in the Windows ‘Start’ menu. The default location is:

 
      Start 
         Programs 
            Northwestern University Library 
               Cataloger’s toolkit

You can of course create a shortcut on the desktop for the toolkit if you wish. The program’s main module is ‘ctk.exe’; this is located by default in this hierarchy of folders:

      Program Files
         ctk

2.10.5. When the toolkit installation goes wrong

Modules out of date

The installation program may show you a message claiming that certain system modules are out of date on your computer; but the installation program doesn’t appear to be able to overwrite them. If this happens, cancel the installation. Open the file ‘setup.lst’ with Notepad. Near the top of this file you’ll find a stanza named ‘Bootstrap Files’. The first part of the file should look something like the following illustration.

Delete all of the lines in the ‘Boootstrap Files’ stanza except for the line that begins ‘File1’. The beginning of the revised file should look something like the following illustration.

Save this modified file, replacing the previous version. Then start the installation program again.

Modules in use

The installation program may show you a message claiming that this or that module is in use. If you have neglected to cancel all programs from Northwestern University Library, cancel the installation, cancel the other programs, and start again. If you have remembered to cancel all Northwestern programs before starting the installation, click the ‘Ignore’ button; and answer ‘Yes’ to the next question if you’re asked if it’s OK to proceed. You may be asked the question about ignoring the problem more than once, for various modules.

2.10.6. Initial toolkit configuration

Some of the tools of which the toolkit is composed depend on a large number of configuration files. The first time you install the toolkit, you should also download the file ‘ctksupport.zip’, which you’ll also find at Northwestern University Library’s HTTP site. Unzip this file into the folder that contains the toolkit itself (probably the c:\Program Files\ctk folder). After unzipping the file, move (not copy) all of the ‘ini’ files to the standard folder for initialization files. (The folder varies, depending on the operating system. In Windows 2000, it’s the c:\winnt folder; in Windows XP, it’s the c:\windows folder.) Once you’ve downloaded these files, you probably don’t need to download them again—they don’t change much from one version of the toolkit to the next.

Immediately after installing the toolkit (and creating a shortcut, if you wish), start up the program, go to the Options dialog and do the following:

• On the Connections tab, create a connection to your Vger installation (via the ODBC definition you have already established); do this before you do anything else. Also fill in the ‘Path to Voyager.INI’ box with the location of your Vger configuration file; it’s simplest to use the ‘Browse’ button. See the instructions elsewhere in this document for important hints about the information on this tab.
• On the NUC codes tab, identify your bibliographic and authority NUC codes
• On the Button details tab, click the button in the top row with the letters ‘BA’ and ‘M’ on it to find the options for the BAM button. Go to the ‘Files’ tab and fill out the first three boxes. (The box called ‘Files of validation rules’ contains the name of the folder into which you unzipped the ctksupport.zip file.)
• Click the ‘OK’ button on the Options panel. The toolkit should tell you that because you’ve changed critical information it needs to close. Start up the toolkit again.

This is enough configuration to get you started. You will want to make additional changes to other parts of the Options dialog at some convenient time in the very near future.

2.10.7. Multiple toolkit configurations

By default, the toolkit stores its configuration in a file called ‘CTKV.INI’ located in the default Windows folder for configuration files. (The default folder for configuration files varies from one version of Windows to another.) If you want the toolkit to use a configuration file in some other location, or with another name, you can include the full name of the file following the label ‘-i’ in the shortcut you use to start the toolkit. For example, to tell the toolkit to store settings in the file ‘garysconfig.cfg’ in the ‘d:\configs\’ folder, start up the toolkit with an instruction along these lines:

• c:\Program Files\ctk\ctk.exe” -i d:\configs\garysconfig.cfg

If you wish, you can define a number of shortcuts to point the toolkit to several different configurations stored in various initialization files. In this manner, different operators sharing the same machine can each have a separate toolkit setup.

3.1.1. Inspecting MARC content designation

The toolkit performs a large number of tests on the MARC content designation (tags, indicators, subfields, fixed-field codes, and values in coded subfields) of each record it inspects. These validation tests are of two basic kinds.

• The toolkit checks each piece of MARC content designation to determine whether or not it is valid⁸
• The toolkit checks relationships between pieces of data in different parts of the record

The amount of MARC validation the toolkit performs is entirely under your control. The toolkit comes with a set of default configuration files that perform hundreds of different tests. You may choose to remove some of these tests, and/or to define other tests.⁹

The rules the toolkit uses to inspect records, and the toolkit’s configuration itself, may instruct it to make certain changes to records. If this is the case, and if you have asked the toolkit to save modified records back to Vger, the toolkit will write the modified record to Vger and re-open it in the cataloging client.¹⁰ If the toolkit finds any problems in the record it can’t resolve, it prepares a list of them, which you can review later.

The toolkit draws directly on the same tag tables your Vger cataloging client reads, but it uses them in a predigested form that is easier for the program to read than the raw Vger tag tables. Whenever you change your local tag table files, the person in charge of the toolkit can take the appropriate step that will migrate those changes automatically into the form that the toolkit uses.¹¹

3.1.2. Extracting headings

The toolkit extracts each uniform access point from the bibliographic or authority record. The toolkit breaks each heading into its components, and verifies each piece of each heading separately. Appendix B lists the fields and subfields tested, and describes the manner in which they are handled.

3.1.3. Searching headings

The toolkit searches each of the headings extracted from a bibliographic or holdings record against your authority and bibliographic records.

In most cases, the toolkit is only looking for exact matches; it does not attempt to find ‘fuzzy’ matches for a heading. A heading either matches, or it doesn’t.¹²

For bibliographic records:

• The toolkit first searches for an established heading or reference that matches the heading. If it finds a matching established heading or a reference, the toolkit stops work in this heading, and moves to the next heading. The report on the heading only contains information pertaining to the matching authority record.
• If the toolkit doesn’t find an established heading or reference that matches the heading, it performs a second search. The toolkit looks for any bibliographic records—other than the one from which this process began—that contain the same heading; it stops when it finds the first such bibliographic record.
• If a heading is a subject heading that ends with subfield $v, $x or $y, the toolkit looks for an authority record for the last subdivision in the string.¹³
• If the toolkit doesn’t find an established heading or a reference that matches the heading in your main Vger database, and if your toolkit configuration defines any ‘resource’ files or any connections to Vger databases other than your main Vger database, the toolkit searches in these secondary places for authority information. If the toolkit finds a relevant authority record, it will extract the authority record and present the record in the BAM report; if you ask the toolkit to do so, it will also automatically copy the authority record from the secondary database into your local authority file.

For authority records:

• When verifying the established heading (1XX field), the toolkit checks to see if there is a duplicate authority record for the heading. The toolkit expects, but does not require, that each ‘piece’ of the 1XX field (except the whole heading) will match a 1XX field in another authority record, and that no part of the 1XX field will match a see reference.
• For each 4XX field or piece thereof: If the tested heading fragment is not the complete 4XX field, the toolkit expects but does not require that the heading will match a 1XX field in another authority record, and expects that the heading will not completely match a 4XX field in any authority record. If the tested heading is the complete 4XX field, the toolkit expects that the heading will not match a 1XX or 5XX field in another authority record, and that the heading will also not match a heading in any bibliographic record.
• For each 5XX field or piece thereof, the toolkit expects but does not require that the heading will match a 1XX field in another authority record, and expects that the heading will not completely match a 4XX field in any authority record.

At the end of all of this work:

• If the toolkit found anything worth reporting, the toolkit shows you the BAM report, described just below. (Since holdings records don’t have any headings, the toolkit just shows you a MARC validation report.)
• If there is noting noteworthy to report, the toolkit simply tells you that everything is OK.¹⁴ If you want, you can use the Bibliographic BAM report, Authority BAM report or Holdings report button to view the report.

You should use the information in the BAM report to guide your further work with the record. The verification and validation reports, and the kinds of things you might want to do next, are described in the following paragraphs.

3.2.1. General description

The bibliographic and authority BAM reports are similar in most aspects. The following description of the bibliographic BAM report applies in most points to the authority BAM report as well. Those few areas in the authority BAM report that differ from the corresponding information in the bibliographic BAM report are described in a separate section.

The top box of the bibliographic BAM report shows the results of the inspection of the headings in a bibliographic record. This is the verification report. This box contains a list of the headings the toolkit searched,¹⁵ with the tags and indicators from the original variable fields.¹⁶

The bottom box of the bibliographic BAM report shows any problems detected in the record’s MARC content designation. This is the validation report.

Between the verification and validation reports are buttons to help you work through any issues presented in the reports.

Here is a typical bibliographic BAM report. The report shows at the top the results of the verification of eight bibliographic headings. The box at the bottom for MARC coding problems is empty, because no errors were found in this particular record.

The toolkit shows the bibliographic BAM report as soon as it has completed the inspection of a bibliographic record. You can use the Bibliographic BAM report button to recall this report whenever you like—the toolkit keeps the bibliographic verification report on file until you verify the next bibliographic record, or you cancel the program. (To remove the report from the screen temporarily, click its ‘Close’ button.)

3.2.2. List of headings verified

As the toolkit encounters each heading in a bibliographic record, it compares the heading against authority and bibliographic records in your Vger database. At the end of this work, the toolkit shows you what it found out about each heading by means of a series of abstract codes. Each heading report line in the bibliographic BAM report begins with the codes that tell you how the heading measures up against other information in your database.

Although you will quickly come to recognize the most common verification codes, you’re not going to be able to remember all of them. The status box just below the list of headings gives you a terse explanation of the codes for the currently-highlighted heading. You can get a fuller explanation of the codes assigned to a line in the verification report by clicking on a heading to highlight it, and then clicking the ‘Explain status’ button. When you do this, the toolkit pops open a window that contains (among other things) an expansion of the verification codes into real words.

The first code in any of the heading lines shows the result of the comparison of the heading to information in your authority records.

• +	The heading matches an established heading (authority 1XX field)

• %	The heading matches an established heading (authority 1XX field), but there is a problem with the heading use codes (authority 008/14-16)17

• $	The heading matches an established heading (authority 1XX field), with slight differences (differences in capitalization, subfield codes, and diacritical marks)

• >	There is more than one authority record that appears to correspond to the bibliogoraphic heading (490 fields only)

• H	The subdivision ‘History’ appears to be applied incorrectly

• S	The heading matches an established heading (authority 1XX field), except for differences in the coding of subfield $v/$x

• ?	The heading matches the text of an established heading (authority 1XX field), but the tags don’t correspond

• 0	The heading doesn’t match anything in any authority record.18

• !	The heading matches a see reference (authority 4XX field) or something else suspicious

• '	The heading matches the text of a see reference (authority 4XX field), but the tags don’t correspond

• *	The heading matches a see reference (authority 4XX field), but this match is acceptable19

• 5	The heading only matches a see also reference (authority 5XX field)

• o	The heading is a geographic heading which contains ‘Metropolitan Area,’ ‘Region,’ or similar extending phrase. There is no authority record for the heading as given. However, there is an authority record for the heading without ‘Metropolitan Area,’ etc.20

If there is an authority record for the heading (for example, the first code in the report line is ‘+’ or ‘*’), the second character in the line is the ‘descriptive cataloging rules’ code from the authority record’s fixed fields (008/10). If the code is a lower-case letter, the authority record was created by a national library, or a participant in a recognized cooperative program.

• +a	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record conforms to pre-AACR standards

• +b	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record conforms to AACR 1 standards

• +c	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record conforms to AACR 2 standards

• +d	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record does not follow AACR2 standards but is considered compatible with those standards

• +n	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record was not formulated according to descriptive cataloging conventions (used for topical subject headings)

• +z	The 1XX heading in the matching authority record conforms to standards other than those listed above

If this code is an uppercase letter, the authority record was created locally, and not by a national library or part of a recognized cooperative program.

• +A	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record conforms to pre-AACR standards

• +B	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record conforms to AACR 1 standards

• +C	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record conforms to AACR 2 standards

• +D	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record does not follow AACR2 standards but is considered compatible with those standards

• +N	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record was not formulated according to descriptive cataloging conventions (used for topical subject headings)

• +Z	The 1XX heading in the matching local authority record conforms to standards other than those listed above

If there is an authority record for the heading, the rules code from 008/10 may be followed by one or more of the following codes:

• #

  There is a discrepancy between the numbering of a series in the bibliographic record and the series numbering information in the authority record. (This can stem from a large number of causes, such as the following: the authority record may indicate that the series is not numbered, or there may not be a numbering example, or the numbering example does not correspond with the numbering in the bibliographic record.)

• @	Geographic subdivision appears to have been applied incorrectly

• 5	One or more series treatment fields in the authority record lacks the local NUC code in subfield $5

• 4	One or more series treatment fields in the authority record lacked the local NUC code in subfield $5; following instructions contained on the Options panel, the toolkit has added subfield $5 to the authority record

• A	There is a problem with the series analysis practice

• B	The 643 field in the series authority record does not correspond at all to the 260 field in the bibliographic record

• C	The authority record indicates that members of the series should be classed together.

• I	The first indicator in a personal name in the bibliographic record doesn’t match the first indicator in the authority record

• M	The authority record indicates that members of the series should be classed with the main series

• N	The authority record represents a ‘non-unique’ personal name, and the bibliographic record’s title cannot be found among the authority record’s 670 fields

• P	The authority record is a provisional, preliminary or memorandum record

• T	There is a problem with the series tracing practice

• U	The authority record represents a ‘non-unique’ personal name, and the bibliograpic record’s title may be found among the authority record’s 670 fields

• Z	The authority record presents additional problems. (There may be two authority records with the same heading; or a 4XX field in the authority record matches a heading in a bibliographic record.) Click the BAM button on the BAM report for more information

If there is no authority record for the heading and if the bibliographic heading doesn’t conflict with anything in any authority record, the first code in the report line is ‘0’. The code following the ‘0’ in the BAM report line shows how the heading compares against bibliographic records in your file. (The toolkit ignores the bibliographic record from which verification started.) Here are some typical codes used in the second position in the BAM report line:

• 0	The heading is used in no other bibliographic records

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

• *	The heading is used in at least one other bibliographic record; a geographic subdivision has been removed from the heading (see Appendix B)

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

If there is no authority record in the local file for a heading:

• If there is at least one matching bibliographic record (the BAM report line begins ‘0+’), the next code is the ‘descriptive cataloging conventions’ code (Leader/18) from the first bibliographic record that also contains the heading.²¹ You can use this to determine that at least one other AACR2 bibliographic record contains the heading of interest.
• If the heading ends with a general, form/genre or chronological subdivision and if there are no bibliographic conflicts (the BAM report line begins ‘0+’ or ‘00’), the toolkit looks for a subdivision authority record for the last subdivision in the heading. If the toolkit finds such an authority record, the toolkit gives the letter ‘f’ (for ‘free-floating’) with the verification codes. If the subfields appear to be out of order, the toolkit gives the letter ‘v’; if there is some other problem with the last subdivision (example: wrong subfield code), the toolkit gives the letter ‘e’.
• If the heading is an X30 field that contains the qualifier ‘(Motion picture)’, the toolkit looks for other bibliographic records for motion pictures with this title in the 245 field but lack a 130 field; if the heading is a 245 field for a motion picture, the toolkit looks for other bibliographic records for this title plus the qualifier ‘(Motion picture)’. If the toolkit finds any bibliographic records that appear to be related to this one but the qualifier is missing, the toolkit adds the code ‘R’ to the heading verification report line.

The cataloger’s toolkit can not determine that a subdivision is used properly in a particular heading; it only determines that the subdivision is recognized as valild by the subject heading system.

Finally: Once the toolkit has collected the available information about a heading, it is able to guess whether or not it is likely that you need to pay further attention to the heading. For example, if a heading matches an authority record, the odds are that you probably don’t need to worry about the heading. (Of course, there is always the possibility that the matching authority record is actually for a different entity.) At the other extreme, if the heading matches a see reference, you need to do further investigation, and you need to make some kind of change somewhere. The toolkit identifies the headings that appear to be OK by giving the search terms in lower-case letters; those that seem to need further work are in upper-case letters. This visual clue allows you to concentrate on the headings most likely to require your attention.

Here are some examples of complete lines from BAM reports, with explanations of each.

• +c

  100:1

  :

  vauthrin jak

• The heading matches an AACR2 name authority record, and is therefore probably OK

• +n

  650:

  0:

  science--study and teaching elementary

• The heading matches a topical subject authority record, and is therefore probably OK

• 00

  700:1

  :

  DAHL BRENDA

• The heading matches no authority data, and occurs in no other bibliographic record. You will need to search Vger to see if there are any near matches; if the heading presents no problem, you may wish to create an authority record

3.2.3. Buttons on the BAM report

General information

In the cente