NACO or Name Authority Cooperative program component of the Library of Congress Program for Cooperative Cataloguing (PCC) allows participants to contribute and maintain name authority records (NARs) in the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LC/NAF). The LC/NAF is used by cataloguers worldwide to verify the standard forms of name headings that should be used as access points in bibliographic records. Cataloguers have to ensure that all works of an author can be found under a standardized name in the library catalogue by users. A typical name authority record (NAR) shows the authorized form and variants of a name. There are about 700 partners in PCC and they contribute name authority records to LC database via utilities and these records are re-distributed via utilities. By joining this program, participants agree to follow a common set of standards and guidelines when creating or changing authority records in the LC/NAF.

The idea of joining NACO was introduced to us by SILAS (Singapore Integrated Library Automation Services) during one of its user group meetings. The staff of NTU library’s Bibliographic Services Division were excited at the prospect of joining this collaborative effort and contributing name authority records directly to LC under our institutional code. We made enquiries to LC about joining the program and understood that there is no cost per se to join NACO. NACO participants use OCLC utilities in order to contribute authority records online and hence they must be OCLC members.

We submitted NTU Library’s NACO membership application for approval to LC and after waiting for a few days, we received the notification of approval. With the NACO membership in hand the next step was to complete the administrative steps with the assigned LC coordinator and to receive the training for NACO participation. The administrative steps consist of providing to LC, the library’s MARC 21 code, OCLC symbol and authorization details. Online request has to be submitted to OCLC to set the NACO authorization to regular, so that the name authority records can be submitted through OCLC Connexion to LC. A NACO contact from the library also has to be identified to liaise with LC coordinator, to handle the logistics and to arrange the training.

The NACO training is a five-day course conducted for a maximum group size of fifteen participants in a classroom setting and is scheduled on demand for participating libraries. We have the options of one or two staff from the library going to the site of the training to attend, when it is scheduled or arranging a NACO trainer to come to our institution to train us. For the second option we have to bear the travel and local hospitality expenses of the trainer. When  Saralee Turner from SILAS offered to conduct the training free for us, we gladly accepted the offer. SILAS was also assigned by LC, to review the records created by us after the training until we get the independent status. The NACO contact from the participating library will have to create NARs / or do the internal quality check on the NARs created by colleagues, submit these to the reviewer and when approved by the reviewer, contribute these to LC/NAF.

Equipped with the training documents – Cataloguer’s desktop online version and other reference materials downloaded from NACO web site, thirteen staff from NTU Library together with one participant from NIE library and one participant from SILAS attended the interactive training workshop conducted at our institution.

The training covered NACO foundations on Day 1, personal names on Day 2, corporate bodies on Day 3, geographic names and uniform titles on Day 4 and authority workflow on Day 5 with hands on exercises between sessions every day. We emerged as an enlightened group with enhanced knowledge of AACR2, LCRI (Library of Congress Rule Interpretation) and authority workflow after the training. According to a survey done at the end of the 5-day training, 90% of participants felt the NACO workshop was:

• Extremely valuable
• Provided enough detail
• Cohesive and logical
• Appropriate to participants’ needs
• Well-organized
• Had increased their knowledge on the topics presented
• Was overall excellent

Suggestions for improvement included providing more notes for each slide and also to use more local and updated examples.

Creating NARS requires spending time to comprehend the rules and applying them to the heading for which the NAR is created and to the references. Also research has to be done to get any additional facts required, which may involve communication with the authors/cooperative bodies.

We have created many NARs and after the necessary amendments as per the valuable suggestions of our reviewers from SILAS, we have contributed them to LA/NAF. We are very proud to see our institution symbol ‘SG-SiNTU’ in the LC/NAF records. Below is an example of a corporate name authority record that has been contributed to LC/NAF by us.

We are grateful to SILAS for sponsoring Saralee Turner’s and Radha’s precious time in order for them to play a big role in our NACO training and review. As it is also important for one’s organisation to be supportive in investing staff time in this work, our bouquet of roses also goes out to our bosses at the Nanyang Technological University Library. We hope to be able to play a part in the LC/NAF scene soon with our new knowledge and skills. We will be working towards gaining independent status and meeting or exceeding the annual contribution of a hundred new or modified records to LC/NAF.

Visit the NACO homepage  for information about NACO participation.

Contributed by Padmaja Muralidharan and Goh Su Nee