LCGFT Updates
Library of Congress has announced several big steps forward in adding to the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT). General genre terms were approved by LC just before ALA Midwinter 2015. The authority records were distributed to MARC Record Distribution Service subscribers on the Tuesday that many conference attendees were still making their way home from snowy Chicago. Music genre terms are being reviewed by the Library of Congress and will hopefully be approved by the end of February. The literature terms are in the queue for review, with anticipated approval in early March.
Although MARCIVE assisted LC and the various ALA/ALCTS/SAC Working Groups in making the MARC records for these terms, we have to wait like everyone else for the Library of Congress to officially approve the terms and then distribute the records in their weekly files to us.
With the approximately 1,000 general, music, and literature genre terms being approved, there will be a noticeable difference in the MARCIVE NewMatch records received by participants. As the records are approved and distributed, these records will be supplied to libraries based on the usage in their catalogs. These new genre records will be included in the authority records MARCIVE supplies to you, if:
- The term is in your history file of unrecognized terms;
- The term matches a temporary MARCIVE (shg) genre record;
- The term is used in a newly processed bib record.
Libraries with the NewMatch service routinely have their unrecognized terms reviewed. Whenever these terms match a newly established term, the new authority record will be supplied. The records will not be supplied if:
A library opted to not include genre terms in authorities processing, or;
- They do not have NewMatch option, or;
- The genre terms were matched to GSAFD.
Notification customers will receive the new LCGFT authority records whenever these terms match to the temporary MARCIVE genre records. These are records provided by MARCIVE to validate genre terms before LC began creating genre authority records. We are tracking these terms, so when they are established in LCGFT we will supply a delete record for the MARCIVE genre record previously supplied, and replace it with the LCGFT record. These temporary genre records are identified by a “shg” prefix in the control number. There are genre-like terms in LCSH used as the basis for some of the MARCIVE genre records for which there will never be a replacement in LCGFT.
Each library will have to decide how they want to handle these “local” authority records. Libraries are welcome to continue to use them, but it would also be appropriate to review these and replace any with nationality, language, or other demographic qualifiers with the unqualified LCGFT term.
Any bib records sent through Overnight Authorities Processing can be matched against the current LCGFT file and receive matched authority records.
If you do not have one of these services or you have a split between genre thesauri and would like to have assistance with making changes, please contact your MARCIVE representative, or send an email to [email protected].
Written by Mary Mastraccio, MLS
Tags: ALCTS, genre; general genre terms, LCGFT, literature genre terms, music genre terms, NewMatch, SAC