[Heb-NACO] FW: Announcement regarding NACO move to Folio

[Miller, Caroline]

Please excuse duplication.

Caroline

Caroline R. Miller
Team Leader, Discovery Team
Hebraica/Judaica Catalog Librarian
UCLA Library Resource Acquisitions and Metadata Services
2400 Life Sciences Building
621 Charles E Young Drive South
Box 957230
Los Angeles, CA  90095-7230

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From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <PCCLIST at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV> on behalf of Polutta, Melanie <mpol at LOC.GOV>
Date: Friday, May 30, 2025 at 4:52 AM
To: PCCLIST at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV <PCCLIST at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV>
Subject: Announcement regarding NACO move to Folio
Dear NACO,
The Library of Congress is working hard on the data migration to Folio. As a part of this effort, we are replacing the current scripts that handle NACO distribution import and export, as they are very old and need to be updated. A necessary part of this is testing the new programs that will do the work, and we wish to be very careful and thorough in doing this testing. This will include testing the processes with the nodes. As a result, there will be a freeze of NACO imports and exports for approximately two weeks.
Our current dates are:
June 28-30. 2025: freeze of all bibliographic and authority work in Voyager at the Library of Congress. The changeover to Folio will happen at this time for all bibliographic work. This will mean a short freeze of authority work as well. Since this is primarily over a weekend, the disruption to NACO will be minimal.
NOTE: After the bibliographic changeover to Folio, Voyager will remain available through July solely for authority work. NACO distribution will continue without interruption during July.
August 2025, potentially stopping submissions on July 29: all authority work for LC and all NACO nodes will freeze.
August 2025, potentially August 12th: resume processing of NACO files at LC and all nodes as normal.
NOTE: These dates are still somewhat tentative.
A related impact of this process is that there will be a complete re-load of the entire file at the nodes, due to the fact that 005 (Date and Time of Latest Transaction) field in every NACO record will be updated when we officially load them into Folio for the first time. Since this is a field that we use in making matches during the daily loads of new and updated files, it must be accurate. The nodes will receive these updated files shortly after this point.
We have been communicating with the NACO nodes for several months about this situation in preparation for this time period. Your nodes will be in communication with you about exactly what can and cannot happen during the freeze of NACO processing.
On the plus side of this change, there are significant improvements for the NACO file due to this change.

  1.  All new and/or modified MARC fields and subfields in the authority format will now be available for use, following the LC Guidelines<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeDCM/DCM/ZAU.pdf__;!!KGKeukY!2yA_5dgW6d1vouNmeKp7NRidimdVhtcTmtVj4v2Zljo9a7FxzkHwA4U6hv4qKo5AOCSBR-3WsMOi_iJfjE5ZqAVKUV20kw$ >. It will also be easier to update Folio when MARC changes occur in future.
  2.  The improvements in the speed of processing means that the update cycle should now only take about 24 hours.
  3.  All 375 fields in personal name records have been removed.
  4.  Full Unicode implementation is now possible. The PCC Policy Committee has been informed and is in the process of looking at the policy changes that are now possible due to this system change. In other words, don't suddenly start adding any and all scripts! All current policies regarding characters and scripts remain in effect. But the technical barrier to changing the policies is now gone. As decisions are made on what changes NACO wishes to implement, NACO will make announcements and update the documentation as quickly as possible.
  5.  Batch changes to family name NARs to allow them to be used as access points will now be considerably easier and should happen shortly after the re-start.
  6.  Potentially, we will finally be able to convert all RDA-eligible AACR2 NACO records to RDA (i.e. 008/10=z; 040 $e rda). However, this update is still under discussion.
We are all very excited about the possibilities with new scripts and easier clean-up following this transition. We ask your patience with this downtime. Know that we are working very hard and intensely to make this happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.


Melanie Polutta
Cataloging Policy Specialist
Policy, Training, & Cooperative Programs Division
Library of Congress
mpol at loc.gov

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