The year 1997 saw many substantial changes and enhancements in the SUS libraries's capabilities in handling authority work. These enhancements were supported by development work at FCLA and software developments by Gary Strawn of Northwestern University under contact to the University of Florida. These enhancements include:

1. AutoClaim of Authorities (retrospective and ongoing)
2. Keywording of Authority Records
3. Identifying Delete Authorities in the Authority Resource file and preventing their manual derivation into the individual library files.
4. CLARR implementation at most of the SUS Libraries (CLARR is the cataloging toolkit developed by Gary Strawn - the CLARR name derives from its initial purpose of claiming authority records)
5. Enhancements to CLARR itself including the capability to derive or report authority records from a resource file, tighter control in reporting authority review for numbered series, matching of non-normalized heading forms, etc.
6. Software development by G. Strawn for UF that is available for other libraries use. This included mainframe and desktop software for processing geographic-topical heading flips which included a good number of city-flip headings from the 1980s.
7. As of this writing at the end of January 1998, Stawn also has completed software for BatchBAM which allows the computer to perform the complete heading review of all fields under authority control for a sequence of records without the operator having to call up each record individually. It is possible to sort out headings one only wishes to review either as part of a complete verification report or truncated report.
8. A successful meeting of the Committee was held November 19-20. Gary Strawn attended and reviewed his different software developments. Mary Ann O'Daniel and Marty Johnson also participated and in the case of #3 above - the delete authorities - Marty was able to accomplish very quickly what has helped us all in keeping the delete authorities out of the individual databases.

The above points will be detailed below especially emphasizing impact and statistics. This report concludes with a short summary of the November meeting and the goals/activities for 1998.

AUTOCLAIM - Retrospective and Ongoing

In the Spring of 1997, UF was the test case for retrospective AutoClaim. The initial run was over-claiming records, particularly in the case of corporate bodies with subdivisions. Some changes that were made to prevent overclaiming resulted in some underclaiming of authority records. Ongoing AutoClaim works a little differently and claims many of the missed headings, particularly in the case of topical subjects. The impact of AutoClaim was and is impressive. During the months when retro AutoClaim was running in batches for UF, the authority file jumped from 633,918 records to 937,576 records - a gain of 303,658 authorities. It is safe to say 280,000 to 290,000 authorities were added to UF's file through retro AutoClaim. This was more than ten times the number done annually by hand. Some of the libraries in the SUS almost doubled the size of their authority file. The FCLA authority file total for all the SUS libraries was 3,024,807 at the beginning of 1997 and 4,848,218 at the end, a 1,823,411-record growth . Reviewing the Authority file growth for UF for the last three months of 1997, the file has averaged over 5,000 new authorities each month, probably about 95% are AutoClaimed, 4% claimed with CLARR, and 1% derived manually. At this time, all libraries use AutoClaim except UNF and FGCU. UF's is weekly, USF and FSU biweekly, and the rest monthly.

This was ranked high in the Fall of 1996 for development. Work began in late summer and the initial phase is complete. Terms from authority record 1xx, 4xx, and 5xx fields may be retrieved with an "fk=" search. The keyword index is being updated with authority record entries through the online programs and from batch loads of authority records. The keyword indexes for each institution will need to be regenerated in order to index existing authority records.

This had been a concern over the last few years. In discussion at this Fall meeting, Marty thought of several ways to quickly accomplish this. Within weeks, the delete authorities were identified in LTLC as LTLD processing unit headings, and it was made impossible to manually derive them into local files. This eliminated an extra step for all cataloging staff and prevented mistakes and their time consuming corrections.

CLARR IMPLEMENTATION

CLARR had been demonstrated at the Fall 1996 meeting and everyone was anxious to use it. However, getting it set up was not always easy. Phek Su and Daniel Cromwell visited FSU and USF and helped others through e-mail. By the Fall meeting it appeared that just about everyone was using it to varying degrees. For some institutions, getting Windows95 machines up and running was the only hold up. One overall comment was CLARR is more than an authority software package. Probably fewer than 30% of the buttons are authority related. The others support varying operations in cataloging. The "fi" button itself is useful for anyone searching the technical services side of LUIS.

Numerous enhancements were made to CLARR over the year, some before Gary Strawn's June visit to UF and some after. They involved choices that could be specified such as seeing or not seeing validation errors on the verification report, deriving or only reporting authorities in an authority resource file. One significant change was the use of |5 in the 642 of authorities for numbered series. This allowed one to control the report style for numbered series, particularly important when series may be classed together and one needs to review the series authority for treatment. UF currently only uses the "|5 FU" when numbered series are classed separately. Classed together series do not have the "|5 FU" and report in capitals with the code +c#. Another feature, the non-normalized heading review, is very useful in catching punctuation, capitalization, and miscoding on original records.

One of the two packages G. Strawn developed for UF in Spring 1997 involved heading clean-up. Many headings existed in the database that pre-dated the city-flip of the mid-1980s. Also we see from time to time other headings flip in the same way, such as the 1996 flip of the headings "Constitutional history" and "Constitutional law". The mainframe software Gary developed identified these headings and the PC software processed them, i.e., it took a geographic heading divided by topic and changed it to a topical heading divided geographically. This process made use of his large file of indirect heading forms for geographic names. UF ran this process in late June and over 9,000 headings were changed.

While technically a 1998 development, Gary Strawn began working on this in 1997 and its parameters were outlined at that time. This process can be defined by LUIS control number spans, an indexed 035, or any index display. The records are quickly collected and then each individually BAMmed. A file of 330 records was processed in 38 minutes, a process one could start up before going to lunch, to a meeting, etc. The report can be tailored to include all verification reports, to include or not include validation errors, to omit reports if they meet the defined exclusions of OK records, and to include all headings in verification reports or to include only those headings in error. It has great potential to be used in vendor record loads, government document records, purchased microform records, etc.

This summary is in place of normal minutes. Much of the meeting was in the form of reports and demonstrations. Following are its highlights:

1. Discussion of the FULOADER software developed by Gary Strawn for UF. This software allows UF to accept MARC records from a vendor, which FCLA ftps and loads automatically in LUIS on a weekly basis, adding an indexed 035 to the records for access later. When the records have completed receipt/cataloging, they are batch collected, then individually updated on OCLC using FULOADER. When this process is completed, they are then called up on LUIS and the OCLC control number added to the record and a letter "z" placed before the indexed 035. The process is fast and only requires operator interaction at three brief points. In one hour of connect time to OCLC, 1,000 records can be updated. If this is done in non-prime time, the OCLC charges can be substantially reduced. UF worked with both Yankee Book Peddlar and Blackwell North America records. UF's experiences with the FULOADER led them to explore a similar software development plan to automate many of the ordering routines using Yankee's GOBI records.
2. Gary discussed software development of CLARR and CLARR's future with Northwestern moving completely to Voyager in August 1998. Recently Gary has developed a "thesis button" that can be used to create a record template which can be used on thesis or instances where records share many similarities. About 40 different templates can be defined.

A 32-bit version of CLARR is in alpha testing. It will have new options and a new e-mail button that would help in sending problem reports directly to LC. It also allows choices of colors for background, printer selection, etc. Once this version proves stable, there will be no further work on the 16-bit version we all now use. Since our Windows95 machines are 32-bit machines, this change should speed up some parts of the processing.

Gary also discussed some of his mainframe software for identifying errors beyond the NOTIS defined errors. The geographic-topical heading flip was Error 43. Other errors may group together, covering several error numbers. The SUS libraries and FCLA are interested in attempting to work with most of these defined error types. The software can define personal names that are near matches, topical headings that do not match authorities, time period spans that could be completed based on publishing date of title, etc. Working this out is part of the 1997/98 contract with UF.

Protecting locally added data on authority records was well supported at the Joint Meeting and Gary has developed software that accomplishes this at Northwestern as they process the weekly LC changes. This software protects fields that have been added with a |5 but also allows the retention of field coding for fields that have been suppressed from display. Some modifications may be needed to this software, but it could help in the timely processing of changed authorities and reduce the manual labor of adding back heading or adjusting field coding.

3. Error 43 was demonstrated and print copies of the A-C mainframe identification of headings was distributed. Participants were encouraged to give this process a try on their databases.
4. Delete authorities in LTLC was discussed. As mentioned earlier, this problem was quickly resolved to everyone's satisfaction. We agreed that being able to see that the authority was a delete authority in the index display was acceptable. Preventing the manual deriving of delete authorities would save later deletion when duplicate or error authorities were reported. It was noted that FCLA's AutoClaim and CLARR do not derive deleted authorities.
5. Conflict software demonstration of Error 9's was postponed. Time was not available and UF wanted to experiment with it some. It does require a mainframe processing of Error 9's and a production of a file that would be Ftped to the PC. The conflict software that processed the Error43 would also process this file.
6. The November 19 afternoon meeting was a joint meeting with the Technical Services Planning Committee. Gary repeated some of his presentation on CLARR, Donna Alsbury demonstrated the ARROW software pointing out some of its capabilities for maintenance of records as well as fiscal information, Nancy Williams described the FULOADER and Shelf-Ready cataloging at UF, and Martha Hruska requested that the Authority Committee assist the Cataloging Group of the Integrated Library System Review Task Force in reviewing the specifications for authority needs. Copies of the Library of Congress specifications and the ILLINET specifications were distributed. By late January a draft of the Cataloging Group's specifications were reviewed and authority issues added by Nancy Williams and Phek Su. A copy of this version was mailed to all Authority Committee members.
7. The Authority Committee thanked Mary Ann O'Daniel, Marty Johnson and Gary Strawn for all their contributions this year. Mary Ann thanked UF, Nancy Williams, and Phek Su for their time and financial support on authorities issues and activities.

Following are the Committee's interests and activities for 1998:

1. Working with the NU (Northwestern University) software for protecting local data on authorities.
2. Working with the other NU mainframe software for Error Codes
3. Experimenting with the Conflict software for Error Codes 1-4, 9
4. Assisting SUS libraries in using BatchBAM
5. Documenting the keyword indexing of authority records in LTLC and individual databases
6. Clarifying with Gary Strawn and Northwestern the mainframe software and PC software re: security/retention/availability
7. Look at the generic software Gary Strawn has developed for CLARR's use on other systems
8. Participate in the Integrated Library System Review

Nancy Lynne Williams, UF, Co-Chair
Phek Su, UF, Co-Chair
Mary Ann O'Daniel, FCLA, Liaison for FCLA
Jean Bostwick, UF-Law
Beth Henry, UF-Health Center
Linda Smith, UNF
Virginia Kuehn, FSU
Alva Stone, FSU-Law
Bob Sun, UWF
Linda Sutton, UCF
Susan Heron, USF
Charles Gordon, USF-Medical
Vicki Grahame, FIU

Nancy Lynne Williams, UF, Co-Chair, Authority Committee
Phek Su, UF, Co-Chair, Authority Committee
Mary Ann O'Daniel, FCLA, Liaison to Authority Committee