No Slide TitleHow Authorities Processing Improves Results with Encore and Other Catalog Search Overlay Products
Joan Chapa
Current online catalogs reflect a legacy of card catalogs.
Library technology lags behind the popular search engines commonly used today
Many libraries frustrated that their catalogs (a major investment) are not being used to full potential.
“Known-item” searches are what these catalog searches do best
Products to Enhance Discoverability
New products developed to harvest data from library OPAC and other sources
Identified as: catalog overlay, discovery tools, library resource portal, discovery layer, etc.
Usually platform independent
VuFind (open source, originated at Villanova University)
No Authorities? Lipstick on a Pig
Implementation of these discovery tools without authority control has been described as putting lipstick on a pig.
Why Is Authority Control Needed?
Encore creates tag cloud terms from LCSH, so current terms and “see froms” are needed
Facets display a number of areas, including authors
One facet extracts data from form subdivision in $v. If data is still in $x, information may not be properly faceted. Correction of $x to $v is done during authority control.
Keyword Search Yields Too Much
Keyword searching often yields too many hits
“Related Searches” use authority records to allow a more nuanced search
Search in MSU catalog: Global warming
“Related Searches” Plants, Effect of global warming on
Preferred Terms
Authority control provides the user with the term that is currently used
Also adds current term to tag cloud
Search in UC-Boulder catalog: Orientals
“Related searches” Asians
Keyword searching also does not allow for pseudonyms
Authority record points to other works by the same author under a different name, narrowing the search
Search in HPL catalog: Julie Andrews
“Related searches” points to her books for children under name Julie Edwards
Uniform Titles
Uniform titles further enhance discovery
Critical for music searches, scores & sound recordings. Popular form of title is in uniform title.
Search on popular name without authority cross reference in place. Work is lost!
Search in UC-Boulder catalog: Cradle song
“Related searches” lists uniform title of Cradle song for various composers
Discover MORE with your discovery tool. Use MARCIVE authorities!
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