Staff Papers

Authority control in AACR3

A paper by Deirdre Kiorgaard and Ann Huthwaite, with acknowledgements to Barbara Tillett.

Abstract

Authority control is a vital component of any catalogue. Although AACR2 does provide guidance on choosing access points for bibliographic records and on formulating headings and references, until now it has neglected authority control. AACR2 does not provide information on the principles of authority control or guidance on the essential elements of an authority record.

AACR3, due for publication in 2007, offers the perfect opportunity to redress this. Explicit guidance on authority control and the construction of authority records will be included in a new Part III.

Building on the conceptual model provided in FRBR, there will be greater opportunity to expose bibliographic relationships through the use of headings for works and headings for expressions.

Outline

Authority control in AACR3

  1. Why bother with authority control?
  2. What guidance does AACR2 provide in relation to authority control?
  1. What is missing from AACR2, and how are we managing without it?
  1. What is AACR3?
  1. AACR3 and authority control
  1. Timetable for AACR3

1. Why bother with authority control?

Slide 1: Authority control in AACR

Today we have heard about the VIAF and the People Portal, and of developments in the archives field. Each of these projects involves re-purposing existing national authority files and linking them, either to each other or with other resources. These types of projects value-add to the investment already made by many libraries and archives in creating authority records. However, even without these innovative uses of authority records, there are many good reasons for libraries to choose to create authority records.

Slide 2: Authority control

Before I go into the main part of my talk on authority control in AACR3, it can’t hurt to remind us of why we do authority work at all.

There are three main beneficiaries of authority records.

2. What guidance does AACR2 provide in relation to authority control?

Slide 3: AACR2

Now that we’ve reminded ourselves of why we create authority records, let’s look at the guidance offered by AACR2 on authority control. Although AACR2 doesn’t explicitly address authority control, it does provide guidance on a range of issues related to authority control. In particular it offers guidance on choosing access points for a bibliographic record; on formulating headings; and on providing references.

Let’s take a look at these now.

Guidance on choosing access points for a bibliographic record

In Chapter 21, Choice of Access Points, AACR2 provides guidance on choosing access points or headings for bibliographic records. These headings then become terms that can be searched in the catalogue.

As part of this guidance AACR2 makes a distinction between two types of headings: main and added entries, both of which may be either names or titles. In the case of names, the distinction between main and added entries indicates the person or organisation primarily responsible for the content of the work represented by the catalogue record. Nevertheless there is only a limited option to designate the actual role that a person has in relation to the work.

Issues such as how to deal with cases of uncertainty regarding responsibility; with changes in responsibility; and differing types of responsibility are dealt with. There is only a limited provision for the creation of added entries for related works.

Guidance on formulating headings

Having chosen the access points you wish to provide, there are several chapters which provide guidance on formulating the heading itself.

Chapter 22 tells you how to choose between different names, and different forms of names for people, as well as how to order the elements of the name, and whether any additions to the name are required. Chapter 24 for corporate bodies and Chapter 25 for uniform titles cover similar information for those types of headings.

Although there is a chapter 23 which covers geographic names, the emphasis is on jurisdictional names and geographic names as qualifiers to other headings.

In each case there is an emphasis on the creation of a unique heading, and the resolution of conflicts between the heading chosen for one name or title, and the heading chosen for another. As a result AACR2 provides for additions such as dates, fuller forms of a name, and other terms to distinguish otherwise identical headings. So, AACR2 does provide us with a method of devising a unique form of heading - the starting point for authority control.

Guidance on providing references

In Chapter 26 AACR2 gives instructions for the references you need to provide in a variety of circumstances. These might include references to different names by which a person or body may be known, variant forms of a title, different forms of a name, or different entry elements. The references provided may be of three sorts: See references from non-preferred form to the preferred form; See also references to other valid related headings; and Explanatory references.

Clearly, if Chapter 26 specifies that a reference is required in a particular circumstance, then that would be a trigger for the creation of an authority record. But in no place in AACR2 is this explicitly mentioned.

So, what AACR2 does not do is tell us where these references are to be recorded. The concept of an authority record, drawing together the preferred form and all the variants, is missing.

3. What is missing from AACR2, and how are we managing without it?

Slide 4: What’s missing from AACR2?

If the whole concept of an authority record is missing from AACR, what else are we missing out on?

There are probably two main areas we should be concerned about:

Guidance on the principles of authority control

AACR2 lacks guidance on the principles of authority control.

Firstly, it does not specify what authority control is. The definition that is likely to be included in AACR3 is: “the means by which entries for a specific entity are collocated under a single, unique authorized form of heading; access is provided to that authorized form from variant forms; and relationships between entities are expressed.” (LC 54)

Secondly, it does not say why we do it - for example which of the goals of the catalogue, or which FRBR user tasks, does authority control support?

Thirdly, it does not say which entities we can create authority records for – the FRBR Group 2 entities of persons or corporate bodies, or the Group 1 entities of works, expressions etc. In AACR3 these will be the entities identified: persons, corporate bodies (including meetings and jurisdictions), uniform titles (including series), and bibliographic resources.

Fourthly, it does not identify the use of authority records as a way of achieving authority control within a catalogue.

Guidance on the elements to include in an authority record

As I mentioned earlier, AACR2 does provide some guidance on what we might include in an authority record; this is given in Chapter 26 on references. But it doesn’t give guidance on what the authority record as a whole should look like.

Since the full content and structure of authority records will vary depending on the communication format standard and local cataloguing policy decisions, AACR can’t attempt to provide detailed guidance for creating complete authority records.

However, it can and should be able to give guidance on such things as:

I will say more on this later when I talk about what you can expect to see in AACR3.

Role of the MARC 21 authority format

Slide 5: Role of MARC21

If so much is missing from AACR, why haven’t we noticed until now?

In the absence of guidance within AACR on how to create authority records, we have been using the MARC 21 Authority Record format to fill the gap. But the MARC formats are not intended to be content standards, they are - to quote from the homepage “... standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form.”

Our cataloging rules such as AACR should be our content standards, i.e., they should focus on the contents of the data elements and how they are to be constructed in bibliographic and authority records. MARC records on the other hand are what enable us to share or communicate these records worldwide in machine-readable form.

4. What is AACR3?

A few times today I’ve mentioned AACR3, and I think it would be good at this point to go back a little and fill you in on why we decided we need a new edition of AACR, and what it will look like.

Why we need a new edition of AACR

Slide 6: Why we need a new edition

Earlier I mentioned that AACR2 lacks guidance on the principles of authority control. Actually, this is an area of concern for bibliographic records too. AACR2 as it presently stands reads very much like a rule book, with lots of what/when/how, and very little of the why. This makes it hard for cataloguers to exercise that “independent judgement” we hear so much about.

The Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (known as JSC) has been looking at this issue for a while. In 1997 the International Conference on the Principles & Future Development of AACR was held in Toronto, and it was clear at that meeting that there was a desire to document the basic principles that underlie the rules. AACR3 is being written in the context of a new statement of the principles behind the rules. It will draw on a variety of sources including: FRBR - Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records; IFLA’s draft statement of international cataloguing principles; and influential works such as Elaine Svenonius’ The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization.

So, one goal of the new edition is to give cataloguers the background that they need: the concepts that are the foundation of international cataloguing principles. This will allow them to produce bibliographic and authority data that meets the FRBR User Tasks and which enables libraries to meet the basic objectives of catalogues (as reaffirmed in the IFLA statement of international cataloguing principles).

Another goal for the new edition is to answer complaints about the complexity of applying AACR2 to digital and newly emerging materials. Some consider that AACR2 has not adapted well to the digital environment. The new edition of the rules will support the description of all kinds of resources (e.g., maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, texts) in both digital and analog formats. The new edition will reduce the need to seek metadata alternatives for digital objects.

Both new cataloguers and metadata creators from other resource description communities consider that the existing rules are too complicated to learn and apply. So, another reason for creating a new edition of AACR is that we want the rules to be easy to use and interpret, and therefore more likely to be used by a wider range of resource description communities.

These are just some of the reasons we need a new edition of AACR. A full statement of the vision for the new AACR can be seen in the Strategic Plan. This was first written in 2002 and is continually re-assessed. The text is on the Web at the address shown here. In the Statement of Purpose for AACR, it says that AACR is “a multinational content standard for providing bibliographic description and access for all media...”. Building on AACR2’s existing strengths, the Strategic Plan sets seven goals for its future development. I won’t enumerate those goals today, but would like to try to give you a taste of what is to come.

Proposed new structure

Slide 7: AACR3: Resource Description and access

The new edition has the working title AACR3: Resource Description and Access.

It’s proposed that AACR3 will be in three parts:

Part I: will cover Description.

As well as the work on principles mentioned earlier, a lot of work is being done on increasing consistency and reducing redundancy, and on providing rules which cover all materials. Concepts and terminology from FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) will be introduced. You can also expect to see resolutions to problems associated with the class of materials concept, and the related issues of GMDs and SMDs. You can also expect that there will be solutions to the residual problems associated with cataloguing resources that change over time. Examples throughout Part I will also be updated.

Part II will cover the choice of access points.

Part III will cover the form of access points.

There will be plenty to talk about concerning AACR3 at a future ACOC seminar!

Since the focus of today’s paper is on Authority Control, I’ll now go into a little more detail on Parts II and III.

5. AACR3 and authority control

Part II: Choice of access points.

Slide 8: AACR3 Part II, Choice of access points

For Part II, JSC proposes to provide an introduction to the principles behind the choice of access points, then specific rules for choosing headings for the description.

JSC has identified some specific tasks that will be given to the editor. They include proposing approaches for reworking the current chapter 21, and updating the terminology to remove the card-based and single-alphabetical arrangement that is behind some of the current rules.

The idea of a “primary access point” is being discussed to replace the term “main entry heading,” but the concept remains the same – to give primary emphasis to the creator of the work contained in the manifestation being catalogued. The principle of authorship is still fundamental to citation and remains an important device to order displays, either as the primary alphabetical ordering for a set of retrieved records, or as a secondary ordering device.

The “rule of three” was re-examined by JSC and has had wide discussion. The rule of three is not a specific rule, but is shorthand for a number of rules that limit the number of access points to be provided. JSC recognises the value of enabling the end user to retrieve all the works of an author, even if that author is, say, the fourth or fifth in a jointly created work. Still, it is likely that there will continue to be an option to limit the access points for cost-saving reasons.

The optional rule at 21.0D regarding designation of function is set to be expanded to allow a wider choice of designations, possibly from sources outside AACR. Although at present this rule relates only to headings in bibliographic records, in future it may be an option for our authority records too. The driving force behind these types of changes in AACR3 is to allow the records to be used in new and innovative ways in projects like those we heard about earlier today.

Part III: Form of access points.

Slide 9: AACR3 Part II, Form of access points

The rules in part III will deal with the form of headings for names and for works or expressions. They will provide explicit instructions on providing references from variant forms and related headings. They will also give guidance on providing authority control for headings in catalogues, and on maintaining the authority file.

As I mentioned earlier, the full content and structure of authority records will vary depending on the communication format standard and local cataloguing policy decisions, so AACR3 will not attempt to provide detailed guidance for creating complete authority records. However, new elements, not covered by the existing rules, will be included. For example there may be elements for the sources consulted in devising the heading or references, or an element for standard numbering.

In making changes to AACR, JSC will keep in mind the other standards work occurring in this area, such as FRBR and FRANAR (the Functional Requirements and Numbering for Authority Records). JSC is still in the early stages of this work, so I can’t give you the full details yet, but just give you some idea of what to expect.

The current chapters 22-25 on the form of heading will be the core of this new Part III of AACR. Chapter 26 on references will be eliminated as a separate chapter. Instead the rules which it presently contains will be integrated with the other rules on establishing the authorised form for controlled names of people, corporate bodies, jurisdictions, and works or expressions.

Headings for works and expressions

Slide 10: AACR3 Headings for Works and Expressions

Another change I’d like to highlight relates to the revision of Chapter 25 for uniform titles. JSC is looking at new terminology for these headings which will bring out their “constructed” nature, and new rules which will also allow us to create headings at either the work or the expression level. Within the new rules will be some guidance on when something is a new work or expression, as well as guidance on which bibliographic relationships are important. FRBR concepts and terminology will also be introduced to this section of AACR3.

Current uniform titles are a mix of headings used to either collocate works, or to uniquely identify them.

6. Timetable for AACR3

Before I finish I’d like to give you an outline of the timetable for the introduction of AACR3, and a little information about the process involved.

Slide 11: JSC Joint Steering Committee for the revision of AACR

JSC, the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, is a group comprising representatives from the constituent organizations: the Australian Committee on Cataloguing, the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing, the American Library Association, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the British Library, and the Library of Congress. The Joint Steering Committee is the author of AACR2, and its amendments. They are the group who are now writing AACR3, with the assistance of an editor, Tom Delsey.

Slide 12: AACR3 Timeline

In recent years JSC has been meeting twice yearly, and last met in October 2004 to review the initial draft of Part I. ACOC received the next draft of Part I in mid-December, and met in mid-January to discuss that draft. We are now in the process of preparing our comments which are due in mid-March. Both the Part I comments and the initial draft for Part II will be discussed at the April 2005 JSC meeting.

This process of review and re-drafting of successive parts will continue until December 2006 when JSC will be ready to send the final text to the publishers. If that deadline is met, then the new edition of AACR will be available by mid 2007.

Slide 13: JSC public website and ACOC website

The JSC intends to provide updates on their progress and to put more information on the JSC Web site. Here is the Web address, and I encourage you to check that site and stay involved in the discussions and the review of drafts that will be coming through.

Australian librarians can have input to this process through any of the members of ACOC. You have met many of the ACOC members here today. Their c ontact details can be found on the ACOC website: http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/acoc.html.

Although it is intended that AACR3 will be a significant advance on AACR2, there won’t be any need for libraries to convert AARC2 records into AACR3 records.

Please reassure your library managers that the major changes we saw when AACR2 was first released, for those who remember it, will not be repeated. Instead we will have a new set of rules which are compatible with the old but which offer solutions for the future. AACR3: Resource Description and Access will be a simple and easy to use content standard that will meet the needs of a wide range of resource description communities.

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