MARS Authority Loads

MARS AUTH LOADS

MARS Authority Duplication Detection Profile | MARS Authority Bulk Import Rules

Each week, on Sunday, our ITS department sends a file of approximately 3,000 bibliographic records to MARS (authority control service) in order to have the records updated with correct authoritative headings. MARS also creates a file of authority records for auth records we do not yet own based on the authority headings associated with these bibliographic records. Within a few days (usually by Tuesday or Wednesday), MARS returns both the bib and auth files to us for loading. Similarly, we sporadically receive files of electronic bibliographic records from vendors which we send to MARS for authority control. MARS returns both the electronic bibliographic records with updated headings and an associated file of authority records for auth records which we do not already own.

The weekly authority files have the naming convention d040704.cc.auth. The electronic record authority files have the naming convention d041003.er.auth. MARS will send an e-mail notification once their processing is completed to let us know that the files are ready to be picked up from their server. ITS retrieves the files and places them on on our server in the directory deleon:/m1/bulk/MARS-AUTHS. Once the files have been retrieved and recorded in the logbook, ISP sends an e-mail to ITS to let them know that the auth records are ready to be loaded to production via Bulk Import..

ITS loads the auth records using the following Bulk Import script run from
degama: /m1/voyager/yaledb/sbin:

$ Pbulkimport -f /m1/bulk/MARS-AUTH/d040704.cc.auth -i YLMARAU -o MARSAUTH

The -f flag signifies where the records are stored before loading.
The -i flag signifies which Bulk Import rule is to be used.
The -o flag signifies the name of the load under which the record was added. This will be the "operator" found in the authority record history tab when viewing the record in the cataloging module.

Once the files have been loaded, ITS will notify ISP that the job has run and will include the name of the log file that contains the job output. ISP then checks the output stats to see that the file has loaded as expected and checks some records in the ProdOrbis cataloging module to assure the records have loaded correctly.

Once ISP is satisfied that the records have loaded correctly, the output stats are sent to the Authority Control Librarian. These records should all load as new or merged authority records. Once in a while there may be more than one matching authority record found in the database. When this happens, the incoming record is discarded. Discards will be reflected in the output stats from the load. The discard log file should be sent to the Authority Control Librarian as well so she can import the discarded record via the cataloging module and decide which record should be overlaid.

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