What is NACO?
Through this program, participants contribute authority records for personal, corporate, and jurisdictional names, uniform titles, and series to the LC/NACO Authority File. Membership in NACO is open to individual institutions willing to support their staff through a process of training, review, and direct contributions of records to the LC/NACO Name Authority File. NACO participants also make changes to existing records within certain parameters.
Institutions exercise this membership in a number of ways. Some possess sufficient resources to maintain individual PCC membership through defined numbers of record contributions for each program. In NACO, this means 200 authority records each year for large institutions and 100 for smaller members. Institutions unable to maintain such production requirements, or work in specialized fields, form NACO funnels to pool resources, expertise, and total contributions.
NACO Program Parameters
Participants agree to follow a common set of standards and guidelines when creating or changing authority records in order to maintain the integrity of a large shared authority file. This results in a consistent and predictable file that will reduce the efforts of the global library community and maximize communal resources.
Training
The PCC affords participants a full course of specialized NACO training and review leading to institutional independence in name authority work. This training is currently offered sequentially in segments that amount to a five day workshop. During the training, guidelines are discussed and expanded upon with an emphasis on building a consistent and predictable file in a collaborative environment.
Basic documentation
In order to prevent duplication of effort, participants should have access to the online LC/NACO Name Authority File for searching purposes. In support of their contributions, participants are also expected to use the most current edition (including updates where applicable) of the following:
- Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (second revised edition) Chapters 21-26 and index.
- MARC 21 Authority Format (including the supplements issued by the Library of Congress (known as the blue and yellow pages)
- The Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs) Chapters 22-26
- The Library of Congress Subject Cataloging Manual (SCM) Memo H405
Name Authority Record Contributions
Participants decide locally which parts of their collections they will include in NACO. NACO participant is under no obligation to create and contribute an authority record for every name encountered in cataloging.
- NACO participants may contribute new name authority records (NARs) and may make changes to existing authority records in the LC/NACO Authority File (LC/NAF) as the need arises during the course of routine cataloging workflow.
- NACO libraries may contribute series authority records and music uniform title authority records only after completing the appropriate additional training. Information is available on request.
Cancellation of Name Authority Records
The construction of the master file database utilized by the LC/NAF does not allow participants to delete name authority records. When the need arises to delete a name authority record from the LC/NAF, NACO participants notify the Library of Congress Cooperative Programs Section.
Bibliographic File Maintenance (BFM)
In order that distributed LC bibliographic records remain in synch with the LC/NAF, participants notify the Library of Congress Cooperative Programs Section of the need to perform certain bibliographic file maintenance as described in the Guidelines for reporting BFM.
Literary Author Classification Numbers M
Libraries with large collections of literature often find that the presence of LC classification numbers for literary authors on authority records in an 053 field are helpful in improving the efficacy of their workflow. NACO libraries may add 053s to new and revised authority records for literary authors after using the 053 request form found on the NACO Home Page to record that number in the LC online shelflist.
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