The DeathFlip Project: Automating Death Date Revisions to Name Headings in Bibliographic Records

The 2005 revision of Library Congress Rule Interpretation 22.17, allowing the addition of death dates to personal name headings with open dates, had a significant impact on the maintenance of bibliographic records. The decision not to include open date forms as “see from” fields in revised authority records destined catalog maintenance staff to higher levels of manual review and editing. At Kent State University this prompted a search for better options and resulted in the creation of a shadow authority file intended solely for automated “flipping” of open date headings to the new forms. The file is available to other libraries for use and experimentation