Category: Cataloguing

We’ve updated our Authority Files

The latest version of  SCIS Authority Files was made available via SCISWeb this week.

To update your SCIS Authority Files, you will need to log on to SCISWeb and then select the Authority Files tab from the navigation bar at the top of the page.  From there you will be able to download the new Name and Subject Authority Files, ready for uploading into your Library Management System.

For more information about SCIS Authority Files,  how to download them, and whether to select SCIS Full Authority Files or Reference only Authority Files, please see our Authority Files Help Page.

RDA Developments

For those of you interested in following the progress of the new RDA (Resource Description and Access) standard, the following update was recently posted on the RDA discussion list by Deirdre Kiorgaard, the representative of the Australian Committee on Cataloguing to the Joint Steering Committee for the development of RDA:

“The RDA toolkit will be published in June 2010. … Over a period of 9 months after RDA is released, US libraries will be conducting testing of RDA.  Information about this testing is in the RDA FAQ http://www.rda-jsc.org/rdafaq.html#11 and also on the testing website http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/.

Implementation in Australian and overseas libraries is expected in mid 2011. Internationally, the National Library of Australia is working with the Library of Congress, British Library, and Library and Archives Canada  to develop implementation strategies and coordinate implementation dates. Within Australia,  the Australian Committee on Cataloguing is preparing a plan for  implementation and training.”

You can join the RDA discussion list from the NLA’s email discussion lists page, or view our earlier post on RDA here.  Ann Chapman has also published an excellent introduction to RDA in the information science journal, Ariadne, the full text of which is freely available at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/chapman/.

Clickview enhancements in SCIS

Over the next month or so, SCIS will be undertaking a project to enhance existing Clickview catalogue records on the SCIS database.   The project will involve adding the ClickView global ID and 2 series statements to each of the 1400 Clickview records we have catalogued to date. Adding the global ID will provide each Clickview record with a unique identifier, which should aid matching of SCIS and Clickview metadata in local systems, and the series statements should facilitate searching.

To incorporate this new information into the records, we will be utilising the following MARC fields: the 035 (system control number),  the 500 (general note), and the 830 (Series added entry) fields. We will be using the 500 field rather than the 490 (Series statement) field because the series is not actually stated anywhere on the items. An abbrieviated example of the MARC coding for the enhanced records is below (note that this example record does not include all the fields that would normally appear in a SCIS record), and we’ll posting here and on the SCIS website once the enhancements have been completed.

clickview

For those of you wondering about RDA and SCIS…

book_store_on_Thames

As you may be aware, initial testing of RDA is to be undertaken by the U.S. National Libraries (The Library of Congress (LC); the National Library of Medicine (NLM); and the National Agricultural Library (NAL)).  The testing period was due to begin in July this year after the release of the online version of RDA and was projected to take approximately nine months.  However, there been have unforeseen delays in releasing RDA and so testing has not yet commenced.

At this stage SCIS (along with other national agencies) is still awaiting the outcome of the U.S. testing. We’re also closely monitoring the implementation plans of the national libraries including the National Library of Australia. Naturally before committing to a course of action regarding RDA, SCIS will need to consider the impact of any such changes on our users very carefully, and will also need to confer with library system vendors to ensure that any changes will be supported by school systems.  If you’re worried about RDA affecting the library records you download from SCIS, please don’t be – we won’t be making any changes until we are certain that our users will be able to support the new standard!

Those of you interested in undertaking a bit more research on RDA’s development and implementation might find the following sites interesting:

http://www.rda-jsc.org/rda.html – Created by the  joint steering committee for the development of RDA, this page contains background information and FAQs about the and projected implementation of RDA.

http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/rda.html – The National Library of Australia’s RDA information page contains information about the projected implementation of RDA by the National Library, as well as links to some interesting presentations on RDA and the conceptual models on which it has been based.

http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/ – The Library of Congress’s RDA testing page gives information about progression and methodologies of the testing being undertaken by the U.S. National libraries.

The gorgeous image I used for this post is of a book fair on the Thames, and is by Jasoon, whose images on Flickr Creative Commons  can be viewed at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoon/ / CC BY 2.0