Last edited: April 6, 1989
See also: Acronyms
Most of the problems we are encountering in the CLCAT cleanup and authority work are a result of the original OCLC conversion and/or the horrors of UTLASization. Recently cataloged or corrected records are usually of very high quality, but occasionally have incorrect filing indicators or a lack of spaces between initials in personal names.
An incorrect filing indicator causes a heading to file incorrectly in CLCAT, e.g. a title beginning with "an" and a filing indicator of 2 will file the title under the blank space. It virtually irretrievable.
Occasionally a record beginning with a significant word (not an article) has a filing indicator set to something besides zero. For instance if the title is "Veal cordon blues" and the indicator is set to 2, the title would file under "al cordon blues" between "Akkkkk! It's Cathy again!" and "Alabama Ma'am."
Despite references to the "MARC standards" different fields or different formats may use the first or second indicator as the nonfiling indicator. Some standard, eh? Please check the OCLC manuals or ask me or Stan if you have a question about a particular record.
In personal names it is important to leave a space between initials. Two different forms of a name with different spacing such as "Confusing, I. M." and "Confusing, I.M." will create two different headings on CLCAT and then the record must be corrected (or re-corrected.) Some of these problems may be a result of my illegible handwriting on printouts. I will try to be clearer. If you have any questions about CLCAT cleanup printouts ask the cataloger whose initials are on the printout.
Also, remember to put spaces between letters of acronymns in added titles (N A T O, not N.A.T.O.). On CLSI there is no difference between a group of letters separated by periods (N.A.T.O.) and a group of letters not separated by spaces (NATO). If you don't put spaces in, there will be double headings in CLCAT.
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