MnPALS Authorities Task Force: April 2007

MnPALS User Group/Cataloging Subsystem Meeting, April 17, 2007

Submitted by Anne Levin, Chair

Membership (*As of 10/05/2006)

MnPALS Libraries Members:

Anne Levin – (Chair) – Minnesota Historical Society

Julie Rustad – College of St. Scholastica/Duluth

Linda Swanson – Concordia College/Moorhead

PALS Staff:

Mary Ann Greenwald – Support Staff

Deborah Domek – Technical Staff

The MnPALS Authorities Task Force has not formally met since the Fall 2006 MnPALS meeting. An informal report from the Authorities Task Force chair, Anne Levin, follows.

(1) In December and January, I checked version 17 on Lute and Harp to see if the table changes that the Authorities Task Force had made in version 15.5 had transferred to version 17. In the cases where I saw problems, I sent that information into PALS.

I reviewed the tag label changes, punctuation, subfields, and spacing issues in Lute and Harp before and during the transition to version 17 and most of the changes had transferred. I notified PALS about those parts that weren’t working and those problems are now resolved.

One issue that I noticed during my review that is still outstanding is that the results lists for browse searches currently do not display consistent see references - some display, many don't. I submitted this issue to PALSHELP and it was submitted to ExLibris by Al at the end of January.

(2) FYI - Something to note that I hadn’t caught during the transition to/training on 17:

If you want to be able to search the ALEPH (LC) authority file from the client you have to add SYS10 to your list of bases in the cataloging client.

(3) Information that Stephen Hearn reported on at the ExLibris meeting:

He reported that as far as he and the Version 18 Authorities Enhancements Committee could tell (they weren't able to test it completely), the changes they suggested regarding tag sensitivity and differentiation between 4xxs are working in Version 18.

He reported however that a new problem has appeared in Version 18 - a heading replacement issue. As I understood his description, the problem is that if an authority heading with a $a and a $x is revised then all the headings with just $a are overwritten with the $ AND the $x. It sounds like this would be a problem if the auto-update feature were turned on - which MnPALS hasn't done, but were hoping to do in 18. So it sounds like that is a stalling point for the auto-update. He mentioned a possible workaround using a java script to turn off the two indexes that are involved in the mix-up before turning on the auto-update.

As far as future enhancements to the Aleph Authorities, Stephen Hearn is hoping that ExLibris will implement better $4XX management and better hierarchical management (display of 5xx information in browse results lists).

Authorities Task Force WebBoard:

(Agendas & Minutes, Completed Work, Discussion) http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=17