FAQ - General

I need to evaluate a migrated record that has a 667 note « CETTE NOTICE VERSÉE EN LOT DOIT ÊTRE ÉVALUÉE AVANT D'ÊTRE UTILISÉE, POUR S'ASSURER QU'ELLE RÉPONDE AUX NORMES DU PFAN ». 1XX should be modified to a $XX field according to PFAN practices. What value should I use in 4XX $w/2?

Canadiana is a national authority file and any record that has been added to it is considered part of it, even if it has not been evaluated. The appropriate value is therefore "e" (Established form of the earlier heading (National Authority File)).

What if the record has a 670 added at the CIP stage and I need to add information from the same work after it is published? Should I add another 670 or add the information to the existing 670?

The information must be added to the existing 670 field.

Example :

670 current	Mon labo dans un pot Mason, 2020 : $b formulaire du CIP de BAC (Jonathan Adolph; non-Canadien)
670 modified	Mon labo dans un pot Mason, 2020 : $b formulaire du CIP de BAC (Jonathan Adolph; non-Canadien) page de titre (Jonathan Adolph) quatrième de couverture (concepteur d'activités scientifiques pour le magazine FamilyFun et professeur de journalisme)

When "CIP" appears without further specification in subfield $a, this should be entered as a location in subfield $b with the name of the entity in field 1XX as the information found in parentheses. Record personal names in direct order.

Example :

Record before modification	100 1# Bédard, Brigitte, $d 1968- 670 ## Et tu vas danser ta vie, 2015. CIP.
Record after modification	100 1# Bédard, Brigitte, $d 1968- 670 ## Et tu vas danser ta vie, 2015 : $b CIP (Brigitte Bédard) page de titre (Brigitte Bédard) page 4 de la couverture (née à Montréal; journaliste indépendante; écrit régulièrement pour le magazine catholique Le Verbe)

I need to modify a record locked by another participant, what can I do?

In Record Manager, when creating a new authority record, or when modifying an existing record, you may save the record in the “In Progress” file, in order to continue working on the record without immediately replacing the master record in Canadiana.

If you save your record in the In Progress file without locking the master record, any other contributor may modify the master record in Canadiana; if that happens, you will no longer be able to replace the master record by your own version of the record. Therefore, you risk losing the work you have done. Of course, it will always be possible to copy and paste each field individually from your In Progress record to the master record, but this is time-consuming, and additional information, as well as additional fields, may have been added to the master record by the other cataloguer, which represents a collective duplication of searching and typing efforts.

If you save and lock your record in the In Progress file, you will avoid these issues, as this will prevent all other contributors from modifying the record. Please note that a record will remain locked for 90 days, unless you unlock it yourself or replace it. After 90 days, the record will automatically unlock, unless you extend that duration by saving the record again in the In Progress file.

Records may remain in the In Progress file as long as work isn’t finished, but they may be forgotten there, being therefore uselessly inaccessible to other institutions.

IMPORTANT: Should a PFAN member need to work on a locked record, she/he should forward the following message to the PFAN discussion list, to alert members.

Bonjour,
Message adressé aux personnes répondantes des institutions du PFAN.
Nous avons besoin de modifier la notice suivante : [Control number]
Est-ce que l’institution ayant verrouillé la notice peut nous contacter lorsqu’elle sera déverrouillée ?
Merci à tous.

[This message is not meant to put pressure on the institution working on a record, but simply to avoid having authority records remaining locked for no valid reason.]

Are we expected to change the authorized access points for an agent’s works and expressions (such as authorized access points for an author’s or a composer’s works), if the preferred form for the agent alone is different from the form used in the access points for the works and expressions?

This situation is likely to happen when we delete duplicate authority records for an agent, in Canadiana. Applying the Procedure for duplicates may result in cases where the authorized access point for the author becomes different in the personal authority record and in the authority records for this author’s works and expressions. Although this situation is far from ideal, PFAN does not require cataloguers to modify all the authority records for works and expressions, to match the preferred form for the agent’s name, when they request that a duplicate record be deleted.

When the authority records for works and expressions are used, revised or updated, the access points for the agents, in those works and expressions records, will be modified, on an as-encountered basis, so that they are similar to the authorized access point use in the author’s personal authority record.

Depending on their institution’s policies, the cataloguer may decide to apply the Procedure for partial modification of records describing works and expressions in cases where the person’s access point was modified. When this policy is applied, it is not necessary to modify all the records representing the person’s works and expressions.

However, please note that new authority records being created for works and expressions must always be created using the preferred form for the agent’s name, whether or not existing authority records for works and expressions have been modified to correct the form of the authorized access point describing the agent.

How can I delete a record in Canadiana?

Only LAC staff is allowed to delete records in the Canadiana file.

The PFAN documentation includes some situations where deletion of records is expected, for instance in the Procedures for duplicates, and in the Manual (field 008/32).

For any type of situation not covered in the documentation, please send a request for deletion to pfansuppression-deletionfnap@bac-lac.gc.ca, explaining the situation.

If any participant wants to run some tests, it is suggested that they do so in the “Saved – In Progress” file, to avoid having to use Canadiana numbers.

Are we allowed to create or revise series authority records in Canadiana?

No, the creation or revision of series authority records is not yet allowed in the Canadiana file. This will not be possible until the training documentation on Series authorities has been created.

Last update: 2022-01-25