19 TESTIMONY Adventures of a NACO Cataloger: Is Doctor Julius a Bewer or Brewer? by Donna Wells In April of 2019 our library purchased the title: The History of the New Testament Canon in the Syrian Church by Julius A. Brewer. The title was a republication of a work originally published in 1900. When I started the cataloging process I could find no record for the book in hand, but since it was first published in 1900 I thought I should be able to find a record for the original publication. I was unable to find the record under name and title, and I finally found it searching by title and date. This record listed the author as Bewer, not Brewer. Turning to the Library of Congress Name Authority File (NAF) I searched for Julius August and found that the NAF had two Name Authority Records (NARs), one for Julius Bewer and the other for Julius Brewer; both, amazingly, with the same first and middle names and birth and death dates. The entries were: Bewer, Julius A. ( Julius August), 1877-1953, and Brewer, Julius A. ( Julius August), 1877-1953. There was very little documentary information in the NARs to be able to determine whether the two were actually the same person. On the other hand, what were the chances of a Brewer and Bewer having the same exact given names, as well as the same life span? But which was the correct spelling? Interestingly, the OCLC records were fairly evenly divided on the issue, and our library catalog had several titles under each name as well. One aspect became clear from all that data however, it did indicate that both Juliuses were doctors and Old Testament scholars. Now I felt quite confident this was a single personage. I looked at the title pages of our copies of his books and found that the professor had taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Fortunately we have in our collection a history of Union Seminary, and Doctor Julius is quite prominent in it. He is a Bewer, not a Brewer. There is no real clarity on how the misspelling began, but it is likely his name was once misprinted on a title page and this error was perpetuated. What to do? We have two NARs for the same person. At a loss, I consulted our Atla NACO coordinator, Richard Lammert. After checking my research, he agreed with my conclusion that Bewer was the correct form of the name and sent me wonderfully simple instructions to resolve this complex problem. I moved the information in the 670 fields from the Brewer NAR to the Bewer NAR, combining the information from both records into one. I also marked the incorrect record for deletion by adding a 667 field stating the reason for the deletion and the LCCN of the correct NAR and emailed the Library of Congress (naco@loc.gov) to let them know the Brewer record needed to be deleted. This is the record that resulted from this process: Donna Wells is Associate Director and Head of Technical Services at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. mailto:naco@loc.gov 20 JANUARY 2020: VOL. 28, NO. 1 • THEOLOGY CATALOGING BULLETIN There are two areas in the LC-NACO documentation that somewhat cover this situation. One is this FAQ: Are there specific guidelines by which LC operates when determining which of duplicate heading should be deleted? There are no specific guidelines for handling duplicates. NACO catalogers are encouraged to make the determination as to which NAR should be canceled and report this to their LC liaison. Generally: • Prefer to keep a heading that has been coded for RDA over one coded AACR2 or coded for earlier rules. • If both NARs are coded for AACR2 or RDA, prefer the heading that contains more information (e.g., dates, fuller form of name). • If both headings are identical, prefer the one with the more complete set of information citations (670s) and references, 046 or 37X fields. • If all things are equal, pick either one. Do not agonize over the choice! In any case, useful information from the NAR being canceled is transferred to the NAR being kept. Only LC can cancel Donna Wells is Associate Director and Head of Technical Services at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. 21 TESTIMONY duplicates, but the NACO Program relies on independent NACO catalogers to recommend which heading should be kept in order to make the process more efficient. Unless there are other factors involved, the assessment of the NACO cataloger will generally be accepted by LC. (http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/naco/personnamefaq.html#3) The other is from the Guidelines for reporting NACO BFM (Bibliographic File Maintenance): Duplicate name heading reporting OCLC also sends to LC an error report identifying duplicate headings in the authority database, allowing LC staff to resolve conflicts and to maintain affected bibliographic records. As of [sic] result, exact duplicates do not need to be reported to LC. However, logical duplicates for the same entity that use different 1XX forms do still need to be reported to LC. (http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/naco/bfmguide.html) Most NACO work is fairly straightforward and simple to do. However it is these knotty problems and unusual situations that make the work more fun and interesting. I am glad that under RDA guidelines we can add more biographical information to our records than we could with AACR2. This is the information that is usually the most helpful for differentiation and most intriguing when discovered. This world contains many more fascinating people with amazing accomplishments than the general public has never heard of, but the catalogers know them. We meet them in our work. http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/naco/personnamefaq.html#3 http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/naco/bfmguide.html