Hi Jane,
Thanks for the message. We have recreated the error and are looking into it.
Best, Tracy
Tracy Meehleib
Network Development and MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington, DC 20540-4402
+1 202 707 0121 (voice)
+1 202 707 0115 (fax)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jacobs, Jane W
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 2:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] MARC to MADS
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) > 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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