NLM has decided to follow the British Library's lead and try to avoid creating any further undifferentiated NARs for NACO, nor to add any further identities to existing NARs. If using RDA qualifiers such as period of activity or profession will allow the name to be differentiated, then these elements will be added to the heading and headings will be coded RDA. Catalogers who are not yet trained in RDA will work with or pass the work onto NLM catalogers who participated in the RDA test. While NLM is not as optimistic as the BL that undifferentiated records can be avoided completely, NLM believes that minimizing the number of undifferentiated headings in the national authority file will be a benefit to the cataloging community.
Diane Boehr Head of Cataloging National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, MS3823 Bethesda, MD 20894 301-435-7059 (voice) 301-402-1211 (fax) [email protected]
