MnPALS Authorities Task Force Report: Fall 2007

Membership

MnPALS Libraries Members:

1. Final Report of Anne Levin as Chair of the Authorities Task Force:

I resigned from the Task Force on September 4, 2007 in order to focus on work responsibilities. The other members were notified of this decision August 29, 2007 and following that, the Cataloging User Group co-convenors, Sheila Hatchell and Robert Bothmann were notified on September 4, 2007. Since the Task Force had been inactive while waiting for the move to Version 18 or a later version of Aleph, it seemed like a good time to make this transition.

I want to thank all those who have been members of the Task Force and the Cataloging User Group for considering the concerns about Aleph Authorities. I appreciated the work of all of the Task Force members while we were reviewing the problems with Aleph and working out the solutions back in 2005/6. Mary Ann Greenwald and Deb Domek gave us a lot of their time and assistance in making the changes and contributing to the effort to improve the Authorities displays.

2. The Task Force has been inactive while waiting for the move to Version 18 or a later version of Aleph.

In regard to the task force report made by Anne Levin in the Spring of 2007, at that point there was an outstanding problem from the transition to version 17 in that see references were not appearing as they should in the OPAC. Al Rhykus reported to Anne in late May 2007 that the PALS staff were able to tweak the settings and get that to work – the see reference that had not been appearing do appear now. However there are still the larger authorities problems that also affect display (or prevent display) of authorities references that are hopefully to be solved as part of the Version 18 authorities enhancements. Following the ELUNA meeting this summer and as we approach a transition to Version 18, hopefully more information will be available regarding the status and success of Ex Libris’ authorities enhancements.