Selecting Non-Staff Heading Indexes (Titles)

Question: How do I use the non-Staff Heading indexes for titles?

In last month's authority control tip, we talked about seaching the Voyager catalog module using various "non-Staff Heading" indexes for names and subjects. In this month's tip, we'll look at the "non-Staff Heading" indexes for titles: Title, Journal Title, Series Title, and Series: Not Traced. Remember that you cannot retrieve any authority records or cross references with these searches (because they are not Staff Heading searches) but they can still be very useful.

Title

The "Title" search is a general all-purpose index that can be used to search many different kinds of titles. Most people use it to search for the title proper (245 field) but it can also be used to search for main and added entry uniform titles (130, 730), title portions of name-title headings (240, 7XX$t), variant titles (246, 740), and series titles (440, 8XX$t, 830).

However, you cannot use the "Title" index to find a title that has been used as a subject heading. Thus, if you want to find a work about Beowulf (as opposed to the actual text of Beowulf) you must use a subject search. If you are doing heading maintenance or NACO work in staff Orbis, you will often need to do two separate searches (both title and subject) to make sure that you find every bib record with a particular title heading.

Journal Title

The "Journal Title" search indexes the same fields as the "Title" search, but it only retrieves bib records that are coded as serials. The system looks at the values in the fixed fields to see if the record is a serial.

Series Title

The "Series Title" index limits your search to series title fields. It is especially useful to catalogers who create series authority records for NACO. The index searches the bib record 440 and 830 fields, as you would expect, but also the $t portion of 4XX and 8XX fields.

The series numbering ($v) is also indexed in this search. This allows you to search for a particular issue of a series. It also means that the series numbering will display in your list of search results. The Staff Title Heading index does not display series numbering. To see this for yourself, search the series "New perspectives in philosophical scholarship" using both a "Staff Title Headings Search" and the "Series Title" search.

Series: Not Traced

The "Series: Not Traced" index lets you search series that are coded 490-0 in bib records. Our old NOTIS system did not have this functionality. If you are doing series "cleanup" or establishing a series authority record for NACO, especially if it is an older series, you will probably want to search this index to see if any bib records that had the series coded as "untraced" should now be changed to "traced."

To try this for yourself, search the series "Studies in African history" using both the "Series Title" and the "Series: Not Traced" indexes. This series is supposed to be traced, according to its series authority record, and in the "Series Title" search results, you will indeed find about a dozen Orbis records that have this series traced. However, in the "Series: Not Traced" search results, you will find a handful of additional Orbis bib records that have the series coded 490-0 (not traced). These records can be corrected (to 440 or 490-1/830 as appropriate) and then all the books in this series can be retrieved using a single title search.