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Library Management Systems |
The cataloger’s toolkit for Vger |
Program and documentation by Gary L. Strawn, Authorities librarian, etc., Northwestern University Library.
The following trademarks, tradenames, registered trademarks, and/or service marks are used in this publication: Microsoft Windows™, Mirosoft Internet Explorer™, Microsoft Access™, Microsoft Word™ and Microsoft Outlook™—Microsoft Corporation; NOTIS™—Dynix; OCLC and Passport—OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.; Eudora™ and Eudora Pro™—Qualcomm, Inc.; Unicode™—Unicode, Inc.
The expression Vger is used in this document to represent the name of a well-known client-server integrated library system.
No copyright or trademark protection is claimed on the abbreviations CTKV and CTK or the expressions cataloger’s toolkit and toolkit.
This documentation and the executable modules it describes (.EXE and .DLL files) are made available by Northwestern University to all interested parties at no cost. These modules may be incorporated into other programs developed by other parties, and freely redistributed with such other programs. The documentation may likewise be freely reproduced and redistributed. The following restrictions are placed on this free redistribution:
Those wishing to incorporate these modules into programs distributed under other conditions should contact the following organization for the terms under which this distribution may be allowed:
Technology Transfer Program
Northwestern University
1801 Maple Avenue
Evanston, IL 60208
847/491-3005
This document tells you how to use a program called the cataloger’s toolkit to perform many time-consuming, repetitive, and error-prone cataloging activities. The toolkit has special strengths in the verification and validation of bibliographic and authority records, and the creation and manipulation of authority records, but helps you perform many other operations that allow you to work with your Vger system in a more efficient manner.
Using the cataloger’s toolkit, you should be able to produce records of high quality, in less time and with less effort than before. The toolkit can be an important part of a movement to continue the creation of high-quality authority and bibliographic records in the face of reductions in staff and higher productivity standards. I’m glad you are able to use the cataloger’s toolkit, and I wish you much success in your work.
Gary L. Strawn
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Versions of the toolkit prepared after October 2004 for any version of Vger appear only to work with Windows XP.
Note the following points if your workstation already contains some version of the cataloger’s toolkit:
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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
At the end of all of this work:
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.
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.)
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:
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 |
In the center of the bibliographic BAM report are several buttons. Use these buttons to do further work with the headings listed in the report. These buttons are described in the following paragraphs.
Explain status: Find out what a report line means
To see an explanation of the results of the verification of a heading, click on a heading in the list to highlight it, then click the ‘Explain status’ button. The toolkit expands the codes into words, and tells you other things about the heading.
To create a new authority record, click on a heading in the bibliographic verification report for which there is not yet an authority record (i.e., a line whose first code is not a plus sign), then click the ‘Create authority’ button. (If the highlighted heading already has an authority record, this button is not active.) The toolkit formulates a proposed new authority record. What happens next depends on the choice you’ve made on the ‘New authority’ tab of the BAM button’s configuration on the Options panel.
In either case, you can immediately view the authority record from the verification report by clicking the ‘Display authority’ button.
If the heading matches anything in an authority record, you can view the authority record either by double-clicking on the heading in the list, or clicking once on the heading and then clicking the ‘Display authority’ button. The toolkit opens up a separate window and shows you a formatted version of the authority record.
The ‘Change’ button is available when any of the highlighted lines in either the list of headings or the list of validation problems meets any of these criteria:22
In other words, the ‘Change’ button is available whenever it’s possible to make a change based on one of the highlighted lines in the BAM report, and operator approval is required before the toolkit makes the change.
To change one or more things in a record, highlight all of the lines in the heading and MARC boxes that represent things you wish the toolkit to fix, then click the ‘Change’ button. The toolkit will make all of the indicated changes, save the record to Vger, and open the modified record in the Vger cataloging client. The toolkit will also prepare a fresh version of the BAM report for you.
One final important thing to keep in mind about the ‘Change’ button: it only affects one bibliographic record. If you want to request a batch heading change to a set of records, use the yellow button with the big red cross on it.
Find out about changed headings
You may adjust the toolkit’s configuration so that it will automatically modify headings in certain closely-defined cases. If you have done so, and if the toolkit has followed your instructions and changed one or more headings in a bibliographic record, you can click the ‘Hdgs changed’ button to view a list of the changed headings.
Create an authority record for a series-like phrase
The schemes followed by both Vger and the cataloger’s toolkit for the validation of headings do not provide a simple means for creating authority records for series-like phrases. If you wish to create an authority record for a series-like phrase, you can click the ‘Series-like phrase’ button. This button causes the toolkit to create an authority record whose heading consists of the text from a ‘quoted’ 500 field in the bibliographic record.27 After the toolkit has created the record you can modify it to suit the exact needs of the situation. In most cases, you’ll need to change the heading, and adjust the wording of the 667 field. The following illustration shows a typical authority record for a series-like phrase as created by the toolkit, before it has been modified by an operator. Obviously, some work is yet needed on this record.
Recall the record that was inspected
One of the buttons on the bibliographic BAM report will show the Vger record number of the record that was just inspected. If you click this button, the toolkit will call up the record in the Vger cataloging client.28
Use the ‘Print report’ button to print a copy of the bibliographic verification report. The toolkit includes your initials and date at the top of the first page of the print.
Get online help for the BAM report
The BAM report panel contains a HELP button on the left side, in about the middle; the icon on this button is an arrow and a question mark. You can drag this button to any other part of the BAM report, and this online documentation will open to the relevant point.
Use the purple ‘fi’ and ‘fiH’ buttons to re-search a heading, and see what the Vger index looks like. (These buttons are the same as the toolkit’s FIND and FIND HEADINGS buttons.) When you click the ‘fi’ or ‘fiH’ button on the BAM report, the toolkit inserts the selected heading into the appropriate dialog box, and sets as many options for you as it can. You finish the operation in exaclty the same manner you would do if you clicked the toolkit’s FIND or FIND HEADINGS button.
S#: Find classification numbers that go with a heading
Use this button to find classification numbers that are used most often with a particular heading. This button will work more quickly if you install certain routines on your Vger server, and supply the appropriate information on the Options panel. If you haven’t installed the server routines the button will still work, it’ll just take longer for it to do its work.
This button is the same as the ‘S#’ button on the toolkit’s main panel, except that the button on the BAM report saves you some typing.
‘Red cross’ button: Request a batch correction
If a bibliographic heading matches an authority 4XX field (see reference tracing), you can (if you’re authorized to do so) request a batch correction by clicking the BIG RED CROSS button on the BAM report. (This button is the same as the BIG RED CROSS button on the toolkit’s main panel, except that you don’t have to call up the authority record in the Vger cataloging client first.)
‘BAM’ button: Request BAM of associated authority record
If a bibliographic heading matches an authority 1XX field, the toolkit will on option perform a secondary BAM of that authority record. If this authority BAM finds any problems (for example: 2 authority records with the same heading), the BAM report for the heading will show that there is an ‘associated’ problem, and the BAM button on the BAM form will be available. If you highlight a heading that shows an associated problem and click the BAM button on the BAM form, the toolkit will show you the BAM report for the authority record. Use this authority BAM report to resolve problems aristing from the authority record.
‘e-mail’ button: E-mail the BAM report to someone
If for any reason you should wish someone else to know about anything in a BAM report, you can click this button to send the report as an e-mail message. As is the case with Vger records you send as an e-mail message via the E-MAIL button, the toolkit supplies much of the body of the message (in this case, it’s the BAM report). You determine the recipients, and supply the subject line and any annotation to accompany the BAM report.
The list of recipients you see here is the same list you see with the E-MAIL button. In the version of the BAM report sent in an e-mail message, the toolkit indicates which lines are highlighted, so you can refer in your annotation to the ‘highlighted’ line or lines as appropriate.
Use this button to display in the Vger cataloging client bibliographic records linked to the inspected record via information in 760-789 fields. If you click this button, the toolkit calls up each matching record in the Vger cataloging client. (What happens next, if anything, is up to you.) This button is only available when one of the highlighted lines in the validation report (the bottom part of the BAM report) indicates that linking information in a linking field found a match.
If the toolkit found any problems in the MARC content designation (or similar structural problems) in the record, it will describe each in the frame at the bottom of the BAM report. (If the toolkit didn’t find any errors in MARC content designation in the record, this frame is empty.)
The following illustration shows a typical BAM report, superimposed on the related bibliographic record. The report of MARC coding problems is the lower window in the BAM report; the first line of the MARC coding report begins ‘If any Illustration code’.
Most of this report consists of terse descriptions of each problem. As a general rule, you should consider each of the problems (and change the record as necessary) before starting work on another record. (The Vger cataloging client will not allow you to save a record that contains any MARC coding errors,29 but the toolkit cannot force you to fix the problems it reports.)
Some of the lines in the validation report may begin with a ‘plus’ sign (+), which means that it’s possible for the toolkit to change the record for you. Consider each of the possibilities carefully. Highlight as many of the ‘+’ lines as you wish the toolkit to take care of for you, then click the ‘Change’ button.
If you have asked the toolkit to do ‘duplicate detection’ based on standard numbers in a record, and if a line in the report indicates that one of standard numbers in the current record appears in some other record, a double-click of that report line will produce a display of the related record.
If the toolkit found any problems in the record related to the use of diacritics, a double-click on any of the report lines will produce a display of the record, with a dot indicating the location of each diacritic. In the following illustration, the bibliographic record just BAMmed contains two diacritic errors: a diacritic on an unrecognized base character, and an unrecognized diacritic combiation. The record display produced by double-clicking either of the two lines shows with a black dot the placement of all diacritics in the record.
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 |
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.)
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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.
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:
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).
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:
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.
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.
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):
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.
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.
Here are some examples of the kind of changes the program can make with the BIG RED CROSS button:42
Here is an example of one kind of change the program can make with the SPLIT HEADINGS button:
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.
Northwestern University Library’s batch correction programs use a system of queues to contain messages about corrections to be performed. These queues are in reality nothing more than dedicated folders on some disk drive somewhere. The messages in these queues are just text files (which you can inspect with the Windows Notepad or similar program), each of which describes one change to be made. The correction programs do their work by creating messages, moving them from one queue to another, and using instructions in them to make changes to records.
Individuial libraries have a great deal of flexibility in the implementation of queues; the person at your institution who oversees the performance of correction requests will design a workflow for batch corrections that suits the needs of your institution. (The design of queues and the shuttling of messages between them is described in some detail in the separate document Making changes to headings.) The most important thing for you to know right now is that when you use the toolkit to formulate a request for a change to headings, you are in fact creating a small file that gets written to a folder somewhere; and this file—perhaps not until some later time—is used by another program to find and modify a group of records.
There are two basic models for setting up queues of correction messages.
In either case, an institution may choose to have corrections performed as requests are submitted (or approved, depending on the model followed at your institution), or an institution may choose to perform corrections in batches, when Vger is not too busy.45 All this means that, depending on choices made at your institution, the changes you request may or may not be reflected immediately in your database.
Several pieces of the toolkit’s configuration (available on the toolkit’s Options panel) are related to the request for a batch correction:
Use the BIG RED CROSS button on the toolkit to initiate a request for a general batch correction. More specifically, use this button when you want to change every occurrence of a particular heading or subdivision to one other thing.
When you click this button, the toolkit looks at the Vger cataloging client. If the active record46 in the cataloging client’s window is an authority record, the toolkit assumes you’re interested in making a correction based on that authority record. (If the active record is a bibliographic record, the toolkit may instead—depending on options you’ve chosen—display its ‘define your own correction’ form and automatically click the ‘Pick up’ button in the frame for the old heading.) The toolkit searches each 4XX field in the record against your Vger headings index, in an attempt to find reference tracings that might indicate the need for corrections. (The toolkit doesn’t limit itself to 4XX fields marked ‘old heading’—it checks them all.) If the toolkit finds a 4XX field in the authority record that matches one or more entries in your Vger headings index,47 it adds it to a list of potentially-interesting headings. The toolkit also picks up other pieces of information from the authority record. (You won’t necessarily be able to see or modify these other pieces of information.)
When the toolkit has examined each of the 4XX fields in an authority record, it displays its findings in a small dialog box.48 The following illustration shows a sample of the dialog box the toolkit generates, based on the authority record shown in the Vger cataloging client’s window. (At the time this picture was taken, this institution’s database contained bibliographic records with subject headings beginning ‘Poor $x Housing’.)
Here’s a picture of just the correction request form:
The ‘old heading’ frame contains information about 4XX fields that might be needed for batch corrections. The principal business in this frame is a drop-down list showing each 4XX field that matches headings in your database. (The counter just above this drop-down box shows how many headings are in this drop-down list—not how many bibliographic records would be affected by the correction.) If the ‘old’ heading is a 451 field (geographic heading) that contains only subfield $a, the toolkit attempts to manipulate the old heading into the proper form to use in indirect subdivision, and shows this to you in the ‘Indirect subdivision form’ box.49
The ‘new heading’ frame contains the 1XX field from the authority record. If this is a 151 field that contains only subfield $a, the toolkit attempts to manipulate it into the proper form to use in indirect subdivision, and shows you this form in the ‘Indirect subdivision from’ box.50
When you see this correction request form, you can do the following things:
Under certain circumstances, you won’t be able to use the toolkit’s simple correction request form or even the split heading correction request form to create a correction request. In many of these cases, there will not be an authority record for the heading you want to change; in some cases there will be an authority record for the ‘new’ heading, but the heading you want to change will not be represented by a 4XX field in it. In still other cases, you will want to base a correction request on information in an authority record, but you will want to adjust the information in ways that are not allowed by the simple correction request form. In these and similar circumstances, you need to use the more elaborate correction request form the toolkit makes available.
You start using this form with whatever information happens to be available. If there is an authority record that contains at least some useful information, call up the authority record in the Vger cataloging client, click the BIG RED CROSS button to put the authority record’s information into the simple request form, then click the ‘Send this to special form’ button on the simple correction form. If you don’t have an authority record that contains any useful information, call up the simple request form with the BIG RED CROSS button, then click the ‘Show blank special form’ button on the simple correction request form.
The following illustration shows how the more elaborate correction request form looks when you click the ‘Show blank special form’ button on the simple request form. When you click the ‘Send this to special form’ button, the form will contain information (old heading, new heading, etc.) lifted from an authority record.
The ‘Notify’ menu choice allows you to identify the party or parties to whom e-mail notification should be sent after the correction has been processed. (The list of e-mail recipients available here is the same as the list available with the E-MAIL button.)
The main part of this form contains information distributed on three tabs. All of the information you’ll use in run-of-the-mill batch corrections is on the ‘Headings’ tab. In some cases, you’ll need information on the ‘Files, etc.’ tab or the ‘Multiples’ tab.
The ‘Headings’ tab contains information about the old and new headings. Many elaborate corrections will only have information on the ‘Headings’ tab.
This frame defines the heading that will be changed. The correction program uses this information to search Vger indexes to find candidate records, and to find candidate headings in those records.
Give the tag and indicators as they are (or would be) found in a 4XX field in an authority record. The tag must begin with ‘4’, and the indicators must be those appropriate for use in authority records. (Follow these conventions even if an authority record does not lie behind the correction request. Think of the correction request as a virtual authority record.) The program will translate blank indicators into ‘#’ symbols so they’re easier for you to see, but the correction receiver will translate those symbols back into spaces.52
In the box for the old heading, use the vertical bar to represent the subfield delimiter. Do not use spaces around subfield codes. If you include diacritics and special characters, use the equivalents described in Appendix C. The text should begin with a subfield code: most of the time, this is going to be subfield $a.
The text of the old heading must contain all appropriate internal spaces and subfield codes, but it does not have to be properly capitalized, and you can omit diacritical marks that normalize to ‘nothing’ in Vger. The correction receiver program uses a normalized version of the old heading to search Vger and to inspect bibliographic headings, so punctuation, capitalization and characters that will disappear anyway are irrelevant here. (If you’re pulling this information directly from an authority record, it’s simplest just to leave the field as you find it. The correction program knows how to handle diacritics, punctuation and so on.)
There are actually two boxes that contain the text of the old heading. The larger box, in line with the tag and indicator boxes, is the one that you can type into. The box just underneath this one shows the heading minus any diacritics; you can use this to make sure you’ve got the important parts right. (The frame for the new heading has a similar pair of boxes.) The toolkit changes this box as you change the text of the old heading. In the cataloger’s toolkit, this box may or may not show subfield codes, depending on your option.
To change a subject subdivision (one appearing in subfield $v, $x or $y of a subject heading) regardless of the main headings after which it appears, give a tag in the 48X group; the heading text should begin with the appropriate subfield code.
If the old heading is a simple geographic heading—a 451 field with only subfield $a—the ‘Indirect subdivision’ box contains the indirect subdivision form of the old heading. This text must begin with subfield $z. If the old heading is anything other than a simple geographic heading, or if you do not wish the correction program to change the indirect subdivision form for a simple geographic heading, leave the ‘Indirect subdivision’ box blank.
If the old heading can be used as a subject heading or subject subdivision, select the appropriate subject heading system code from the drop-down list next to the ‘Subject system’ label. This list shows the code use in byte 11 of the authority 008 field. If this code is ‘z’ the list also shows the corresponding code from subfield $f of the 040 field—the same code used in subfield $2 of bibliographic subject headings. You can also select the code ‘*’ to change all headings without regard to subject system code—you might select this value when changing a personal name, for example.
The Ignore $v/$x coding differences check-box instructs the program to ignore differences in the subfield codes assigned to topical and/or form/genre subdivisions. If this box is checked, the correction receiver program will change a topical or form/genre subdivision covered by the old heading whether it is coded $x or $v in a bibliographic record; if this box is not checked, the correction receiver program will change a heading that involves a topical or form/genre subdivision only if the subfield codes match.
The ‘Series heading’ check-box tells the program the old heading represents a series heading. If the ‘type of series code’ (008/12) in the authority record contains ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ or ‘z’ this box must be checked—meaning the established heading is a series; if the type of series code contains any other value, the box must not be checked—meaning the established heading is a not series. If this box is checked, the correction receiver program looks for the heading in bibliographic 4XX and 8XX fields, in addition to the 1XX, 6XX and 7XX fields it would normally check (depending on other information in the correction request); if this box is not checked, the program does not look at bibliographic 4XX or 8XX fields.53
To change the series numbering pattern, give in the ‘Series numbering pattern’ box an example of the form of numbering you wish to change. (Examples: ‘v. 15’, ‘32’, ‘t. 2’.) The batch correction program will consider series headings whose text matches the text given in the heading box in this frame and whose subfield $v matches the pattern given in this box to be candidates for change. The numeric value you give in this box is not important, as long as you give some numeral; the critical thing is the relationship of the numeral to the caption (if any).
Pick up button: The heading needed as the old heading may not exist in an authority record, but only in a bibliographic record. You can’t conveniently paste the field from Vger into this form, but you can ask the program to pluck it out of a bib record for you. Call up a bibliographic record containing the old heading in the Vger cataloging client and then click this button; the toolkit will present you with a list of the headings in the record. If you select a heading from this list, the toolkit will insert it into the work areas in the old heading frame.
Add as 4XX button: If you click this button, the toolkit will add the old heading to the authority record for the new heading as a 4XX field. (In order for this to work, there must already be an authority record for the new heading. Use the ‘New authority’ button in the ‘New new heading’ frame to create a new authority record.) You’ll normally use this button after you’ve used the PICK UP button to pull in a heading from a bibliographic record; in this case, the heading will contain normal capitalization, punctuation, diacritics and so on. If you have instead typed the old heading into this frame, you’ll want to be sure that you’ve supplied the heading not in normalized form but in a form suitable for use as a 4XX field.
Add as 688 button: If you click this button, the toolkit will add the old heading to the authority record for the new heading as a 688 field, with the prefix ‘Former heading:’. (In order for this to work, there must already be an authority record for the new heading.) You’ll normally use this button after you’ve used the PICK UP button to pull in a heading from a bibliographic record; in this case, the heading will contain normal capitalization, punctuation, diacritics and so on. If you have instead typed the old heading into this frame, you’ll want to be sure that you’ve supplied the heading not in normalized form but in a form suitable for use as a 688 field.
This frame contains information pertaining to the heading that will replace the heading identified in the ‘Old heading’ frame. When the correction receiver program finds the ‘old’ heading in a bibliographic record, it will replace it with the heading defined in this frame.54
Give the tag and indicators as they are (or would be) found in a 1XX field in an authority record. The tag must begin with ‘1’, and the indicators must be those appropriate for use in authority records. (The program will translate blank indicators into ‘#’ symbols so they’re easier for you to see, but the correction receiver will translate those symbols back into spaces.55)
The text of the field must contain all appropriate subfield codes, must be properly capitalized, and must contain all diacritical marks, special characters and internal punctuation. Use the equivalents for diacritics and special characters listed in Appendix C. The text in this box should not end with a full stop or other punctuation unless that punctuation is an integral (i.e., inseparable) part of the heading.56
In the box for the new heading (the one on the same level as the Tag and Ind boxes), use the vertical bar to represent the subfield delimiter. Do not use spaces around subfield codes.
The box immediately below the box for the new heading is the program’s echo of the text of the new heading, minus the codes for any diacritical marks. This may make it easier for you to spot typographical errors. In the cataloger’s toolkit, this box may or may not show subfield codes, depending on your option.
If the old heading is a simple geographic heading—a 151 field with only subfield $a—the ‘Indirect subdivision’ box contains the indirect subdivision form of the new heading. If the new heading is anything other than a simple geographic heading, or if you do not wish the correction program to change the indirect subdivision form for a simple geographic heading, leave the ‘Indirect subdivision’ box blank. If you give an indirect subdivision form in either the old or new heading frame, you must have one in both frames.
To change a subject subdivision, give a tag in the 18X group; the heading should begin with the appropriate subfield code.
To change the series numbering pattern, place in the ‘Series numbering pattern’ box the form you wish the numbering to take. The actual number you use here is not important; the numeral serves only to indicate the position of the numeral in relation to any caption.
Subject system: The subject heading system to which the new heading belongs. This box is only available if the ‘Change subject code’ box is checked. (The ‘Change subject code’ box is only available if the ‘Change only subjects’ box in the ‘Control information’ area is checked.) Only worry about the subject system box in the new heading frame if you need to change the second indicator in a bibliographic 6XX field.
The Geographic subdivision can follow check-box is only relevant when you’re changing a topical subdivision (i.e., when the ‘new’ tag is 180). If geographic subdivision can immediately follow this subdivision,57 check this box; if geographic subdivision may not immediately follow this subdivision, do not check this box. If you check this box, the correction program will move any geographic subdivision in a heading that appears to the left of the changed subdivision, so that it follows the subdivision;58 if you do not check this box, the program will not alter the placement of geographic subdivisions in changed headings.59
Change subject code: Check this box if you wish to change a heading from one subject system to another. (Changing the subject system of a heading is a rare event.) This box is only available if the ‘Change only subjects’ box in the ‘Control information’ frame is checked.
Pick up: If there is no authority record for the new heading, the name to use as the new heading probably already exists in a bibliographic record. If you recall a bibliographic record containing the heading in the Vger cataloging client and then click this button, the toolkit will present you with a list of the headings in the record. You can select a heading from this list and the toolkit will populate the corresponding boxes in the correction request form for you.
New authority: If there is no authority record for the new heading already, use this button to create a new authority record. (The toolkit may ask you to recall a relevant bibliographic record before it creates the new authority record.)
This frame contains information—mostly parallel to information found in an authority record’s 008 field—that controls the performance of the correction.
You occasionally need to be able to say things like these in the definition of the old heading (subfield codes used here are just examples):
Similarly, if the old heading fits into one of the categories listed just above, you may need to be able to say things like these in the definition of the new heading:
In these cases (and many similar ones), you will use one or more instances of a subfield with code ‘*’ (that’s an asterisk) to give the correction receiver program special instructions. Subfield $* is the wildcard subfield. In the old heading definition, wildcard subfields give special instructions for matching a bibliographic heading. In the new heading definition, wildcard subfields tell the correction receiver program how subfields that match wildcard definitions in the old heading should appear in the new heading.
At present, wildcard subfields are only available in headings that begin with subfield $a; but the wildcard technique cannot be applied to subfield $a itself.
Wildcard subfields may contain various pieces of information, depending on the needs and context of an individual change request. Most of this information is provided as codes rather than as literal text. The following table describes the kinds of things that may appear in a wildcard subfield, in the order in which they must appear. Each is described in more detail in the following sections.
Literal text and a count of the number of occurrences cannot appear in the same wildcard subfield. Most wildcard subfields will only need one or two of these pieces of information. When present, the pieces of information must be in this order: group code, subfield code, count, literal text.
Unless the wildcard subfield contains literal text, it must not contain any spaces. Literal text in a wildcard subfield may only contain spaces if they follow the equals sign.
The examples in this section show the application of wildcard subfields to subject headings—specially, LCSH headings—because wildcard subfields are most useful when changing subject headings. Although the wildcard technique is not likely to be needed in other contexts, it can in fact be used with all types of headings.
Whenever you include wildcard subfields in a correction request, you should perform the correction request as a test and carefully examine the correction receiver program’s logs before you perform the correction request as part of a production job.
Wildcard subfields in the definition of the old heading tell the correction receiver how to find matching bibliographic subfields.
For some corrections, you will want to specify only part of the text of a subfield. When this is the case, give the subfield code as the first character in the subfield, followed by an equals sign and the text of the subfield; use an asterisk on either the left or the right end of the text (or both) to show where the program should allow truncation.
If the literal text includes an asterisk to indicate truncation, the asterisk may be paired with an underscore character or ‘#’ symbol to tell the program that a space is required at the truncation point.
Examples of old headings with wildcard subfields
As the program matches bibliographic subfields to wildcard definitions in the old heading, it extracts those matching subfields and moves them to a holding area; these subfields are skipped subfields.
If there are two or more groups of skipped subfields that need to be handled as independent entities, you can use group codes in the wildcard subfield. Most correction requests with wildcard subfields will not need to use group codes.
The correction receiver program extracts bibliographic subfields that match wildcard subfields in the old heading specification—skipped subfields—and holds them in a separate place. Wildcard subfields in the new heading specification tell the program where skipped subfields belong in the replacement field. Skipped subfields removed from the old heading don’t show up in the new heading unless you tell the correction receiver where to put them. Let’s have that last thought again: The correction receiver program only adds skipped subfields to the new heading if the specification for the new heading tells the program where they belong.
This is an important point, probably the most critical one in the definition of correction requests with wildcard subfields, so here it is a third time: Bibliographic subfields that match wildcard subfields in the definition of the old heading will only appear in the replacement bibliographic heading if the definition of the new heading also contains wildcard subfields.
Here’s yet another way to say the same thing: If you use wildcard subfields in the definition of the old heading, the corresponding bibliographic subfields will disappear unless you use wildcard subfields in the new heading to tell the program where to put them.
It only makes sense to include wildcard subfields in the definition of the new heading if you include wildcard subfields in the definition of the old heading, but you can include wildcard subfields in the old heading definition without including them in the new heading definition. If you include wildcard subfields in the old heading definition but not in the new heading definition, any skipped subfields will disappear from the changed heading. If wildcard subfields in the new heading definition do not provide for some of the subfields skipped from the old heading, those subfields will not appear in the replacement heading.
In the definition of the new heading, use wildcard subfields to tell the program where to insert the skipped subfields. Wildcard subfields in the new heading specification may contain nothing, one or more subfield codes, or subfield codes plus the numeral 1 or 2.
The correction receiver program inspects the new heading definition from left to right, and inserts skipped subfields pulled from the old heading as it comes to each wildcard subfield in the new heading definition. The skipped subfields that match any given wildcard subfield in the new heading definition appear in the changed bibliographic heading in the same relative order they had in the original bibliographic heading.
Once a skipped subfield has been accounted for by a wildcard subfield in the new heading definition, it plays no further part in the formulation of the new heading; each skipped subfield will only appear once in the new heading. If the program runs out of skipped subfields before it runs out of wildcard subfields in the new heading, the program ignores the remaining wildcard subfields in the new heading; if the correction receiver program runs out of wildcard subfields in the new heading before it has disposed of all of the skipped subfields, it discards the remaining skipped subfields.
A heading in a bibliographic record may contain subfields beyond the reach of an old heading definition that contains wildcard subfields. As is the case for correcction requests that do not involve wildcard subfields, the correction receiver program carries such subfields forward into the replacement heading without change.
By default, the correction receiver places all subfields skipped from the bibliographic heading into a common pool. When the correction receiver is constructing the new heading, it draws subfields from that common pool. This is probably what you want most of the time; most correction requests will not need the elaborate technique described in this section. In rare circumstances you may find it necessary or useful to divide the skipped subfields from the old bibliographic heading into groups, and to handle each group separately when constructing the new bibliographic heading. To make this possible, you can include an optional group code in some or all of the wildcard subfields in a correction request.
A group code is an uppercase letter (A to Z) given as the first character in a wildcard subfield. (In other words, a group code precedes everything else in the wildcard subfield.) Different wildcard subfields can share the same group code. A wildcard subfield in an old heading definition can contain only one group code, but a wildcard subfield in a new heading definition can contain more than one group code.
As it happens, the correction receiver program requires group codes in all wildcard subfields, but it supplies its own default group code if there isn’t an explicit one. That’s why most correction requests with wildcard subfields don’t need group codes—most requests can rely on the program’s default behavior. In a correction request with wildcard subfields with but no explicit group codes, all subfields skipped out of the bibliographic heading are in the default group, and the wildcard subfields in the new heading draw from the default group. Most of the examples of wildcard subfields in this documentation don’t have group codes, but rely instead on the program to supply its default code; most of the time, putting all skipped subfields into a single (default) group is exactly right.
If you need to use group codes in your correction request, it is probably best if you use group codes in all of the wildcard subfields. This is not required, but the use of group codes in all wildcard subfields of an elaborate request may make it easier for you to work out what is supposed to happen.
The following example shows a moderately elaborate scheme for group codes. This example is given for purposes of illustration only. While this correction will work as described, there is no reason to believe that this example represents something that you ought to do in your own database.
A wildcard subfield in an old heading specification may contain more than one subfield code unless the wildcard subfield contains literal text. The correction receiver program skips any subfield with any of the indicated codes that occur at this point. Any numerals included in the wildcard subfield apply to the aggregate of subfields that match the wildcard definition.
A wildcard subfield in a new heading specification may also contain more than one subfield code. The correction receiver program inserts at this point any subfields with any of these codes that match the group code specification. The subfields in the new bibliographic heading are in the same relative positions they had in the original bibliographic heading. Any numerals included in the wildcard subfield apply to the aggregate of subfields that match the wildcard definition.
A wildcard subfield in a new heading specification may contain more than one group code. The correction receiver inserts at this point any subfields with the appropriate subfields that exist in any of the specified groups. The subfields in the new bibliographic heading are in the same relative positions they had in the original heading within each of the groups of subfields in the original heading.
You will only occasionally supply information on the ‘Files, etc.’ tab. Most of the time, this tab will be empty. The tab’s caption tells you whether or not the boxes on this tab contain any information.
You can use information on this tab to ask the correction receiver program to do two different things when it is performing a batch correction. Although these two things are not directly related, you will often find that you need to consider both of them to carry out a particular action. Both of these topics are discussed in more detail below.
Input file of records to correct
When presented with a standard correction request, the correction receiver program, using the ‘old’ heading as its guide, searches the appropriate Vger index or indexes and draws up a list of candidate records. The program then applies the correction definition to each of the candidate records. This scheme works just fine for a standard correction, in which one ‘old’ heading or subdivision is exchanged for another, and all headings that contain the ‘old’ heading are to be changed. Headings and subdivisions are contained in Vger tables, and the correction receiver program can easily formulate an SQL statement to find candidate records.
However, building a list of everything under a given heading doesn’t work in every case.
There are several techniques—techniques beyond the reach of the correction receiver program—that allow you to identify a set of records, and save them. For example:
If you are able in some manner to identify the records you wish the program to consider for a correction, and can save that set of record numbers in a file, you can give the name of this file in the ‘Input file of records to correct’ box on the ‘Files, etc.’ tab as part of the definition of a correction. At the same time you do this, you need to supply two additional pieces of information.
As it begins its work on a correction request, the correction receiver program considers the contents of the ‘Input file of records to correct’ box. If the program finds a file name there, it opens the file and applies a series of tests in an attempt to determine whether the file contains MARC records or Vger record numbers.
In this manner, if you supply a file of record numbers, the program generates an initial list of records of interest. If the ‘Yes’ button in the ‘Merge records in file with results of a search?’ box is checked, or if you did not supply any file of record numbers at all, the program searches the Vger for suitable bibliographic records, and adds them to the lilst of candidates.
Having done this work, the correction receiver program retrieves from your Vger database a fresh copy of each record in the list of candidate records, and applies to that record the remainder of the correction definition. The primary work of the correction receiver program takes place without reference to the manner in which the candidate record was identified—it handles records named in a file and records retrieved via an index in exactly the same manner.
Supplementary validation rules file
You will occasionally want to make changes to parts of records other than headings and subject subdivisions. In such cases, you may be able to use the capabilities of a special tool, a validation tool, to achieve the result you wish. Normal heading changes do not need to call on the services of the validation tool.
The cataloger’s toolkit makes use of a validation tool that inspects the content designation (tags, indicators, codes and so on) in MARC records, and reports problems that it finds. (Many other programs from Northwestern University Library use this same module.) The interesting thing about the validation tool, from the point of view of batch corrections, anyway, is that it is able not only to inspect records, but also to change them. The validation tool can change many parts of records that the basic correction receiver program—the part that operates on headings and subject subdivisions—cannot touch. The range of transformations possible with the validation tool, while not infinite, is large; if you need to make a change to a set of records other than a change to a heading, you will often find that the validation tool can do the job for you.
The validation tool draws on a set of rules when it does its work. The rules employ ‘if-then’ logic that can restrict a change to records that meet certain criteria; the rules also allow for multi-part actions. If you wish to use the validation tool to modify your records as part of the work of the correction receiver, you must construct the appropriate rules for the validation tool to use, and you must tell the correction receiver program where it can find those rules.
The validation tool applies a single set of basic rules to all of the records it handles (as identified on the Validation tab of its Options panel). If you ask the correction receiver program to pass your records through the validation tool, the tool will use the same basic set of rules on each record it handles. You can if you wish also define a supplementary file of rules for the tool to apply only to one set of records. The supplementary rules file used with one correction request might ask for a certain fixed-field code to be changed—perhaps changed only if a certain code is already present in that position; another supplementary rules file might ask for a note to be added to a record that does not already contain such a note. Within the confines of the abilities of the validation tool, it is up to you to decide what changes you want to make.
If you wish to use this capability, create a configuration file that contains the supplementary rule or rules you have in mind. The file can have any name that seems reasonable to you, and can reside in any folder to which the correction receiver program will have access. Supply this name in the ‘Supplementary validation rules file’ box on the ‘Files, etc.’ tab.
If you wish to use this capability, you must also configure the correction receiver program to perform validation. See the documentation for the correction receiver program for more information on the configuration of that program.
You will supply information on the ‘Multiples’ tab when a single heading in a bibliographic record is to become two or more headings. For example, if you use the toolkit’s ‘split heading’ button to create a correction request, you might indicate that a single heading is to become two or more headings. In this case, the first of the new headings shows up on the ‘Headings’ tab, and the remainder appear on the ‘Multiples’ tab.
The following illustration shows an example of what this tab looks like when an operator has indicated that one bibliographic heading should become two headings after correction. The first of the ‘new’ headings is on the ‘Headings’ tab, and the remaining heading is on the ‘Multiples’ tab.
You can select in turn each of the headings from the list on the Multiples tab. (The label just above the list tells you how many headings are in the list.) As you do this, the display in the Tag, Indicators and Field boxes changes to match; these boxes always show the currently-highlighted new heading, ready for editing.
When a heading’s definition is highlighted, you can:
At any time, you can define an additional new heading by supplying an appropriate tag, indicators and field text, and then clicking the ‘Add as new’ button.
Wildcard subfields and ‘multiple’ corrections
The definitions of old and new headings included in a ‘multiple’ correction may contain wildcard subfields of exactly the same form as wildcard subfields included in definitions of simpler changes.
As described in the section on wildcard subfields, the correction receiver program holds subfields found in the old bibliographic field that correspond to wildcard subfields in the old heading definition in a separate work area, and makes use of them as directed by wildcard subfields in the definition of the new heading. The correction receiver program can apply these extraced subfields to headings that are part of a ‘multiple’ correction. Each of the new headings defined in such a correction has access to a fresh list of the extracted subfields; so the same subfield or set of subfields from the old heading can be used in more than one new heading.
Subfields that lie to the right of the definition of the old heading are carried forward into all of the replacement headings.
In certain circumstances, the capabilities of the BIG RED CROSS button will not meet the need for a correction. The SPLIT HEADINGS button allows you to define corrections with additional characteristics. Use this button when:
At present the SPLIT HEADINGS button only works for ‘standard’ corrections, those that involve the replacement of the leftmost subfields in a heading with new text. (The majority of corrections fall into this category.) There is no doubt that, in the future, the concept will be expanded to other kinds of corrections (for example, the replacement of one topical or form subdivision with any eof several others).
The SPLIT HEADINGS button offers you much more flexibility than the BIG RED CROSS button does; but this means that you must do more work to formulate your correction request. You must identify the heading to be changed, the heading(s) to which that heading should be changed, and the records that should be changed.
When you click the SPLIT HEADINGS button, the toolkit shows you a special form:
The general manner of proceeding is to fill in the form from top to bottom. When you’re all done, you’ll ask that the corrections you’ve defined be performed.
At any time during the definition of split heading correction request(s), you can select ‘Notify’ from the menu to identify the party or parties to whom e-mail notification should be sent after the correction has been processed. (The list of e-mail recipients available here is the same as the list available with the E-MAIL button.)
First, you need to build a list of the new headings that will replace the old heading. To do this, select the menu’s ‘Add new heading’ choice. The toolkit presents you with a second form.
You can identify each new heading in one of two ways:
When the definition of one ‘new’ heading meets your approval, do one of these:
Here’s the top part of the split-heading panel, with three new headings listed:
Next, you need to identify the ‘old’ heading—the heading to be changed. You can either:
Make sure that you select the type of heading from the group of radio buttons to the left of the old heading box. If the wrong radio button is checked, the correction program won’t be able to find headings in the records it inspects.
After you’ve supplied the ‘old’ heading, select ‘Search old heading’ from the window’s menu. The toolkit searches Vger for bibliographic records that contain the heading, and lists them in the ‘bibliographic records’ window.65 Each line contains the date of publication (from the record’s 008 field), the title (or the first part of the title) and the Vger record number (at the end, in brackets). If at any time you wish to see the full display of one of these bibliographic records, just double-click on the title.
The following illustration shows the top part of the split-heading form. Threre are 3 possible new headings, and 9 bibliographic records that contain the old heading. They’re listed in ascending order by date and title.
Now it’s really time to get to work. You need to define which heading or headings should end up in each bibliographic record.
As is the case with bibliographic records listed in the top box, you can double-click a line in the bottom box if you want to see the full bibliographic record for any reason.
The following illustration shows the same form again. Note these changes:
Two lines in the top box and one line in the middle box are shown highlighted in this illustration; a click of the double ‘down’ arrow button would assign the bibliographic record to the second and third headings, and move the line for this bibliographic record from the middle box to the bottom box.
(Note that this illustration has been constructed to display the capabilities of the correction request form; the actual corrections shown are almost certainly not the ones that would actually be made.)
If you want to see the bibliographic record for any title listed in either the middle or the bottom box, double-click on its line. (Seeing the whole record may help you decide how to handle it.)
Continue in this manner until you have assigned as many of the bibliographic records to single headings or combinations as you wish. You may be left with some bibliographic lines in the middle box to which you have not assigned any headings. The correction process will not touch these unassigned bibliographic records in any way; if they contain the ‘old’ heading before the correction, they will continue to contain the old heading after it.
If you make a mistake, you can undo it.
At the end of all of this work, you should have in the bottom box one or more bibliographic lines, each assigned to one or more headings. In the middle box you may have one or more bibliographic lines to which you have not assigned any headings.
When everything in this form is as you wish it to be, select ‘OK’ (formerly ‘Process requests’) from the program’s menu. This next step may take a few seconds, so please be patient. The program scans the bottom list for each set of bibliographic records assigned to the same heading or group of headings; the toolkit prepares a correction request for each separate group. This correction request is accompanied by a corresponding list of bibliographic record numbers. The program then removes the bibliographic lines from the bottom box.
The middle box now contains any unassigned bibliographic records, the top box still contains the same heading lines, and the bottom box is empty. You can assign additional bibliographic records to the headings in the manner described above and create additional correction requests, or you can select ‘Exit’ from the menu to discontinue work on this one problem. (Don’t worry if you find on further investigation that additional bibliographic records need to be assigned to a heading or group of headings for which you have already created a request; just create another request. The program that performs the work won’t be bothered in the least.)
As is the case with corrections requested with the BIG RED CROSS button, corrections initiated with the SPLIT HEADINGS button may be subject to approval at your institution, and may not be performed immediately after you request them.
You can also use the ‘split heading’ form even when there is
only one new heading, if you wish to correct only some
of the records that contain a given old heading. (For example: You discover that some
but not all of the items listed under a personal name heading should be assigned
a different heading.) In this case, there will be
only one ‘new’ heading in the middle box, and you will move to the bottom box
only those records to be changed. You don’t have to have more than one heading
in the middle box before you can use the ‘split heading’ form.
Whenever a modified authority record is written to the database (either as a result of an operator saving a record, or as the result of a batch load of records), if the 1XX field of the previous version is not the same as the 1XX field in the new version, Vger writes a notification of the ‘changed heading’ to one of its database tables. Later, you can use information in this table, together with three batch jobs run on the server, to identify changed headings that appear to call for changes to bibliographic records and—to the extent possible with the Vger heading change program—change those bibliographic records.
The BIG RED Q button allows you to view entries in the Vger heading change queue. This button allows you to see the headings that are in the queue, to find out which records have reference tracings that appear to match headings in bibliographic records, and to initiate batch corrections when appropriate, using features already available via the toolkit’s BIG RED CROSS button.
It is very important to note that the BIG
RED Q button allows you to inspect entries in the Vger changed heading
queue and to change related bibliographic records, but this button does not and
can not change the Vger changed heading queue itself. After you use this button
to clean up your records, the Vger queue is exactly the same as it was before,
even though your bibliographic records may be markedly different.68
There may be many thousands of entries in the Vger heading change queue. When you click the BIG RED Q button, the toolkit shows you a little panel that allows you to define the subset of the queue entries you’re interested in reviewing. The following illustration shows a typical example of this little panel.
The most important part of this work is setting the date range in which you’re interested. Each entry in the Vger heading change queue indicates the date on which the heading was changed; you’ll use this information to look at only part of the queue at a time.
Set the values for the beginning month, ending year, etc. by clicking the up/down arrows next to the appropriate box. By selecting dates, you control the size of the report—and also the amount of time the toolkit takes to prepare the report.
The toolkit remembers the dates you’ve inspected most recently, and shows them to you the next time you click the BIG RED Q button. When you subsequently click this button and then click the ‘Advance to next interval’ button, the toolkit will adjust the dates to show the next review period. For example, if the dates are set to the 8-day period Feb. 1 to Feb. 8 when you click the ‘Advance to next interval’ button, the toolkit will reset the dates to Feb. 9 and Feb. 16, the next 8-day interval.
When you click the ‘OK’ button this form, the toolkit finds each entry in the heading change queue in the range you specify, and calls up the corresponding authority record. The toolkit first does a crude search for each of the 4XX 69 fields in each record.70 If an authority record appears to have any 4XX fields of interest, the toolkit does a more detailed inspection of bibliographic records in your database. 71
As it does its work the toolkit sorts entries in the queue into three categories:
In its report on the headings queue, the toolkit always includes authority records in the first category. You can control the appearance in the report of records from the other two groups by checking (or not checking) the two boxes on the little panel that begins the queue review. (Most of the time, you won’t want to see these records, and you’ll leave the boxes unchecked.)
When you’ve got the definition of the heading change review set to your liking, click the panel’s ‘OK’ button. The toolkit first does a search of the queue to find out how many authority records are listed there. The toolkit shows you the total, and asks if you want to continue. If you approve the extent of the work, the toolkit immediately starts retrieving and inspecting authority records.
While the toolkit is retrieving and inspecting records, it shows you its progress in the title bar of the little panel you used to set the beginning and ending dates. The inspection may take quite a while, depending of course on how many entries are in the part of the queue you want to inspect. If at any time you want to interrupt the toolkit’s work, click the ‘Cancel’ button; the toolkit will show you the entries it has inspected so far.
When the toolkit is done inspecting records in the queue (or when you click the ‘Cancel’ button) the toolkit shows you a list of the headings. Each heading is preceded with a label that shows the category into which the authority record appears to fall (4XX matches bibliographic heading, no 4XX in record, etc.).
The following illustration shows a typical example of the first part of a report on the Vger changed headings queue. The first group of entries shows authority records that contain references matching bibliographic headings, followed by authority records that contain references matching bibliographic headings and also represented by 1XX fields in other authority records. (The text following the label “Conflict?” near the bottom of the display shows the heading that appears to be the problem.) The remainder of the entries shown here represent authority records that contain 4XX fields that don’t represent a conflict. A final group (not shown here) would list authority records with no 4XX fields at all. (As described above, the operator could have chosen to omit the ‘no conflict’ and ‘no 4XX fields’ groups from this report.)
If the toolkit found a 4XX field in the authority record that appears to match something, it shows you that heading immediately under the list of authority records; as you highlight different headings, this text changes correspondingly. (The authority record may contain multiple 4XX fields that match bibliographic headings. For the purposes of this report, it is sufficient that the toolkit stop when it finds the first one.)
To view the authority record, simply double-click on a heading’s line. To close the heading report, click the ‘Close’ button.
After appropriate review (which may involve inspection of the authority record and one or more searches in Vger) you may decide that a batch correction is called for. If this is the case, click the BIG RED CROSS button. The toolkit passes the authority record number and some other information to the same routine that handles the BIG RED CROSS button on the toolkit’s main panel; you’ll get the same effect if you call up the authority record in Vger yourself and then click the toolkit’s BIG RED CROSS button. (When you move a heading to the correction request from, the toolkit removes the line from the queue review list.) Here’s a typical example of a potential heading change request, initiated via the BIG RED Q button.
You can now use this correction request form exactly as you would for other requests. For example, if you click the ‘Correct on’ button, the toolkit will generate a heading change request that will be handled by a separate program. This request is identical in form with other heading change requests.
To treat a conflict as a ‘split heading,’ highlight the heading of interest in the list and click the SPLIT HEADING button. The toolkit passes the authority record number and some other information to the same routine that handles the SPLIT HEADING button on the toolkit’s main panel; you’ll get nearly the same effect if you call up the authority record in Vger yourself and then click the other SPLIT HEADING button.72 (When you move a heading to the ‘split heading’ from, the toolkit removes the line from the queue review list.) The toolkit supplies what it thinks of as the ‘old heading’ in the appropriate box on the split heading panel. Inspect this heading and add subfield codes as necessary before you select ‘Search old heading’ from the split heading panel’s menu.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.

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.
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:
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.

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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
When the toolkit has finished its work:
Important things to know about the 501 button
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:
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.’
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 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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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:
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.
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