Louette Visser & Karen Esterhuyse

9th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and

Information Services

2011

Development and implementation of a comprehensive authority control

performance measurement system

Focus of this presentation

• Importance of performance measurement• Authority control practice at UNISA• Development: quantity performance measures• Development: quality performance measures• Implementation: quantity performance measures• Implementation: quality performance measures• Post implementation results • Limitations of the system• Benefits of the system

Why bother?: the importance of performance measurement of authority

control• The catalogue is the cornerstone of the

library’s collection

• Authority control is the backbone

of the catalogue

Authority control practice at UNISA

• Active participant in NACO• NACO prescribes strict standards and guidelines• Statistics of contributions are compiled twice

yearly• UNISA has been one of the top contributors• Contributes new subject headings and subject

heading change proposals through SACO• UNISA Library regards both quality and quantity

as important

Quality and quantity are both important and should be in balance

Development of quantity performance measures

• Basis for the development: award points to particular types of authority records

• Rationale: complicated records require more research and effort - be awarded more points

• Minimum monthly quantity target: 270 points

• Target adjusted after three months: 390 points

Development of quantity performance measures (Continued)

Category Points (Target: 390 points)

Update to names or uniform titles 2Personal author without references

2

Personal author with references 3Corporate author without references

3

Meeting without references 3Uniform title without references 3Corporate author with references 4Meeting with references 4

Development of quantity performance measures (Continued)

Category Points (Target: 390 points)

Jurisdictional geographical heading without references

6

Family name subject heading 6Non jurisdictional geographical heading without references

6

Jurisdictional geographical heading with references

7

Update to subject heading 7Non jurisdictional geographical heading with references

7

Topical subject heading 8

Implementation of quality performance measures

• Quality standard: at least 85% without errors as required by Library of Congress

• Identify quality indicators• Accuracy, completeness and compliance to

standards of the following MARC fields:– 1XX (headings)– 4XX (references)– 5XX (cross-references)– 670 (transcription of data)

Implementation of quality performance measures (Continued)

Indicators Accuracy Completeness Compliance to standards

1XX Headings

• Inaccurate choice of heading

• Inaccurate MARC21 coding

• Spelling/typing errors

• Inaccurate capitalization

• Inaccurate transliteration

• Inaccurate punctuation

• Inaccurate use of numerals

• Incompleteness of elements

• Incompleteness of database maintenance with regard to incorrect or incomplete headings on bibliographic records

• Non-compliance to AACR2, • Non-compliance to LCRI• Non-compliance to MARC21 • Non-compliance to NACO

participant’s guidelines • Non-compliance to ALA-LC

romanization tables

Implementation of quality performance measures (Continued)

Indicators Accuracy Completeness Compliance to standards

4XX See from tracings

• Inaccurate choice of see reference tracings for variant access points

• Inaccurate MARC21 coding

• Spelling/typing errors

• Inaccurate capitalization

• Inaccurate transliteration

• Inaccurate punctuation

• Inaccurate use of numerals

• Incompleteness of elements

• Omission of relevant see reference tracings for variant access points

• Non-compliance to AACR2, • Non-compliance to LCRI• Non-compliance to MARC21 • Non-compliance to NACO

participant’s guidelines • Non-compliance to ALA-LC

romanization tables

Implementation of quality performance measures (Continued)

Indicators Accuracy Completeness Compliance to standards

5XX See also tracings

• Inaccurate choice of see also reference tracings for related access points

• Inaccurate MARC21 coding

• Spelling/typing errors

• Inaccurate capitalization

• Inaccurate transliteration

• Inaccurate punctuation

• Inaccurate use of numerals

• Incompleteness of elements

• Omission of relevant see also reference tracings for related access points

• Non-compliance to AACR2, • Non-compliance to LCRI• Non-compliance to

MARC21 • Non-compliance to NACO

participant’s guidelines • Non-compliance to ALA-LC

romanization tables

Implementation of quality performance measures (Continued)

Indicators Accuracy Completeness Compliance to standards

670 Source Note

• Inaccurate transcription of heading

• Inaccurate transcription of variant access point

• Inaccurate transcription of related access point

• Incomplete/missing transcription of heading

• Incomplete/missing transcription of variant access point

• Incomplete/missing transcription of related access point

• Non-compliance to MARC21

• Non-compliance to NACO participant’s guidelines

Implementation of quantity performance measures

• Target been reached: need to retrieve statistics for each cataloguer

• Millennium Integrated Library System: Acode 2 to identify authority cataloguer responsible for record

• Review files and saved query functionality enables gathering of statistics of each individual cataloguer and category of authority record

• Statistics recorded on an Excel spreadsheet• Statistics reported monthly

Implementation of quantity performance measures (Continued)

Implementation of quality performance measures

• Sample of fifty records, containing a variety of types of authority records, per individual authority cataloguer

• Reviewed through a bi-annual peer group reviewing process

• Every authority record in sample examined by all group members for non-compliance to the performance measures

• Records that meet the standards are calculated and expressed as percentage of the total of the sample

• Reported bi-annually

Implementation of quality performance measures (continued)

Implementation of quality performance measures (Continued)

Post implementation results

• Cataloguers expanded expertise by contributing wider variety of authority record types

• Total output of authority records originally stable, but increased productivity after target adjustment

• Improvement in quality of authority records

Post implementation results (Continued)

Post implementation results (Continued)

Limitations of the system

• System developed and implemented in 2010: long term effects yet to be determined

• Short term results seems promising

• Quality performance measurement only conducted bi-annually, more frequent reviews could take place

Benefits of the system

• Objective and effective performance reviews and evaluations of the authority cataloguers

• Development of cataloguers

• Increased quality

• Increased productivity

Questions?Thank you for your attention!

Louette Visser

Karen Esterhuyse

visseal@unisa.ac.za

esterkm@unisa.ac.za