Authority Explorer
Overview
The Authority Explorer is a tool to help you quickly and easily find authority data and add it to your bibliographic record. This is most commonly used for adding names from the Library of Congress Name Authority.
You can use Authority Explorer to update an existing name field or to fill in a blank name field directly from the BestMARC cataloging interface.
Authority Search
First, open a MARC record in the cataloger from the My Records pane. Then click the Authority Explorer button next to an authority-controlled field, such as a name in 100 or 700:
The Authority Explorer pane opens on the right side of the cataloger.
The Type, Collection, and Search textbox is automatically filled in based on the bibliographic tag that was selected and the field's existing text.
When searching, a * represents any number of characters. BestMARC automatically combines searchable subfields with * to account for differences in punctuation between what's already in the bibliographic record and what's in the Library of Congress Name Authority.
For example a MARC tag of 100 1# $a Sewell, Anna, $d 1820-1878 will search Sewell, Anna*1820-1878
The search is automatically performed and search results are shown below the options.
Change the search text and click the search button (or Enter on the keyboard) to search with the new criteria.
Changing Type or Collection automatically performs a new search.
Search Results
Click one of the search results to display the details of that authority record:
The Authority record title is displayed first, followed by an Add to Record button (see below), then a textual view of the record's details, and finally a MARC view with tags and subfields.
Click Back to return to the search results.
Click the URI link to open a new browser tab with the Name Authority page for this record on the Library of Congress website.
Check the Save full Authority MARC box to save the Authority MARC whenever the Add to Record button is clicked.
This is only displayed for BestMARC subscriptions with Authority features.
Add to Record
Under the authority record title is the Add to Record button. The button's text displays the bibliographic MARC changes that will be made in the cataloger when clicked.
When the correct authority record is found, click the Add to Record button.
The indicators and subfields from the Authority record are added to the bibliographic record. If the Save full Authority MARC box is checked, the full Authority MARC for this URI will be saved to My Records (when viewed in Authority mode).
In addition, a $0 subfield is added to the bibliographic field with the Authority record's URI. This allows for tracking which fields have been authoritatively verified and for future automatic updates of those fields should the authority record change.
The Authority Explorer closes automatically.