used.­They­are­identified­by­‘local’­in­ subfield­two.­


The nuts and bolts: how do you apply FAST?


I’ve been saying FAST is simple to apply, and the truth is, it’s matter of copying and pasting. The cataloguer looks on SearchFAST for the appropri- ate term and copies it. This search can be limited by facet, or you can search across facets. The search will usually produce a dropdown list; the results in bold­represent­preferred­terms.­Once­ located, the cataloguer copies and pastes the FAST heading from the Term Details section in SearchFAST into the correct facet/MARC­field­in­the­catalogue.­Three­ delimiters are provided: dollar sign, double dagger, and double-barred pipe. This considerably smooths out our workflow.­In­the­Goldsmiths’­Company­ library, I catalogue resources, either from scratch or by importing records from free sources. My cataloguing includes adding an abstract or summary, and subjects from FAST. The librarian then­looks­over­the­final­record.­ Although I will have applied subject indexing already, the ease of application of FAST means it is easy for her to add any additional subjects at this point if she wishes.


At time of writing, I am also still processing legacy material from our old database, including ephemera. I clean this data and add FAST headings in­OpenRefine,­before­making­the­final­ preparations for import in MARCEdit. My­only­bugbear­is­a­tiny­one:­Our­ catalogue delimiter is a single pipe, which isn’t supplied on SearchFAST, so I replace this when cataloguing; macros could also be used to make such replace- ments.


Choosing FAST


Frontispiece of A new touch-stone for gold and silver wares by William Badcock (Second Edition, London, 1679). One of the many works on hallmarking and silversmithing held by the Goldsmiths’ Company Library.


at the Goldsmiths’ Company. For us, the way in which dates were recorded in the 648­field­was­slightly­problematic­–­this­ field­is­free­text,­so­you­can­state­any­date­ at all, e.g. ‘1200-1350’ or ‘Since 1990’. However, for our users it’s important to define­the­century,­as­many­of­them­will­ need to look at ‘19th century jewellery’ or ‘21st century silverwork’. So we made a slight change to the use of 648 (which I cleared with my trainer at the BL and reported­to­the­Fast­Policy­and­Outreach­ Committee) – we use instances of 648 to state the centuries, e.g. 1800-1899; 1900-


40 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL


1999. There is no issue with this because 648­is­a­repeatable­field,­and­I­have­ noticed other institutions doing the same in WorldCat.


FAST, like all vocabularies, is a work in progress, and some LCSH headings are­not­yet­in­FAST­–­when­I­find­such­ a subject, I add the place holder ‘fast’ in subfield­two­and­note­it­in­a­spreadsheet­ – so when the heading appears in FAST, I will add in the linked data element. As a specialist library, we also have some specialist terms, but this would have been the same regardless of the vocabulary we


The ease of use and application of FAST (combined with other favourable factors, such as the use of free bibliographic records­from­the­Z39.50­service­offered­ through the British Library and others) meant­that­we­were­able­to­get­our­OPAC­ up­and­running­effectively­far­quicker­ than we anticipated. Within a year of procurement we had around 3,500 fully indexed records present, with edited abstracts. Although work continues on migrating some of our more niche material, FAST is a key part of our strat- egy. From August 2022, the use of FAST was extended across current cataloguing in the British Library, including the Brit- ish National Bibliography. IP


References SearchFAST: https://fast.oclc.org/searchfast/


Quick Start Guide to FAST: www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/ fast/FAST-quick-start-guide-2022.pdf


April-May 2023


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