Hi Folks,

 

Is anyone out there using authority records in MADS with their digital
asset management system?

 

We have VITAL, which is basically VTLS's front-ended Fedora system.  I'm
still trying to master the basics, despite a couple of training
sessions.  We're having all sorts of adventures just trying to load
records.  One thing VTLS is trying to build up in VITAL is Authority
Control aspects.  Trying to load Authority records is REALLY
challenging.  We got some pretty funky results from loading names.  It
seems that in the conversion process from MARC proper through MarcXml to
MADS, VITAL managed to add in a title which was never present in the
original authority.

 

Something like:

 

                                    <mads:name type="personal"
authority="naf">

                                                <mads:namePart>Nostrand,
John L</mads:namePart>

                                    </mads:name>

                                    <mads:titleInfo authority="naf">

                                                <mads:title>Nostrand,
John L</mads:title>

                                    </mads:titleInfo>

                        </mads:authority>

                        <mads:note type="source">Kings County
miscellaneous lot surveys, 1864-1910, between 1970 and 1990: t.p. (John
L. Nostrand, surveyor)</mads:note>

                        <mads:identifier type="lccn">no
00047905</mads:identifier>

 

This results in the obviously weird name authority: Nostrand, John L -
Nostrand, John L 

 

Now since VITAL is really Fedora and many of its components are really
Perl, it occurred to me to try to convert my MARC into XML with Perl and
go from there to MADS via XSL and see if I could get a correct record
that way.  Interestingly, I didn't!

 

All is cool through the MARC to XML conversion and MARC XML to MARC Slim
XML.  Then when I used the LC supplied MARC XML to MADS stylesheet
(http://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/xslt/MARC21slim2MADS.xsl), the
dreaded "title Info" appears.

 

I'm starting to think that something is funky in the stylesheet, which
VTLS probably has in play as well.  On the one hand, one hardly expects
that if it really is funky, I'd be the first one to notice.  Yet the
more I delve into it the more I'm convinced that this must be so.  When
I edited two key points of the MARC21slim2MADS.xsl and saved it to my
local file I was able to get a seemingly correct result.  The red
strike-throughs show what I did:

 

 

            <xsl:template name="title">

                        <xsl:variable name="hasTitle">

                                    <xsl:for-each
select="marc:subfield">

                                                <xsl:if
test="(contains('atfghklmors',@code) )">

 
<xsl:value-of select="@code"/>

                                                </xsl:if>

                                    </xsl:for-each>

                        </xsl:variable>

                        <xsl:if test="string-length($hasTitle) &gt; 0 ">

 

                                    <mads:titleInfo>

                                                <xsl:call-template
name="setAuthority"/>

                                                <mods:title>

 
<xsl:variable name="str">

 
<xsl:for-each select="marc:subfield">

 
<xsl:if test="(contains(' atfghklmors ',@code) )">

 
<xsl:value-of select="text()"/>

 
<xsl:text> </xsl:text>

 
</xsl:if>

 
</xsl:for-each>

 
</xsl:variable>

 

I'm no XML guru, but the test to see if a title field was necessary in a
MARC to MADS conversion would require a subfield "t" but NOT an "a".  So
taking the "a" subfield out of the test, seems, to my mind, as if it
ought to work.  Furthermore, as mentioned above, it seems to work in
practice.  

 

Still, before I send this off to LC to suggest they correct their
MARCXML Authorities to MADS Stylesheet it seems prudent to ask some more
knowledgeable people to look this over and let me know if I'm way off
base.  

 

If anyone has the enthusiasm to look into this I can provide the
complete showing my complete progression to this bizarre result.

 

 

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help.

JJ

 

 

 

**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**

Jane Jacobs
Asst. Coord., Catalog Division
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432
tel.: (718) 990-0804
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
FAX. (718) 990-8566

 



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