BCC01/SDC/2

Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging : Report from MLA-New York

The Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging held a joint open meeting with the Subcommittee on MARC Formats on Friday morning, February 23, during the annual MLA meeting in New York. This report addresses only the Descriptive Cataloging sections of the meeting and the open question period that followed.

During member introductions, it was noted that D.J. Hoek was absent due to the imminent arrival of his first child, and that Lew Bowling had resigned from the committee. Joe Bartl was enthusiastically welcomed as the new LC representative, replacing Phil DeSellem. Audience members interested in joining either of the two subcommittees were encouraged to submit written expressions of interest by noon on Saturday, February 24.

Nancy Lorimer reported on the CC:DA annual meeting at the recent ALA Midwinter conference in Washington, D.C. Her complete report may be found on the BCC website at http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/BCC/BCC-Historical/BCC01/BCC01SDC1.html and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Music Cataloging Bulletin. Nancy highlighted two issues that will be of interest to music catalogers: 1) the CC:DA support for changing rule 21.30J1 (Title cross references) to make the exceptions optional; and, 2) the new optional rule in the draft version of chapter 9, allowing for the use of conventional terminology in the physical description of an item (rule 9.5B1). The new chapter 9 terminology will be investigated by the subcommittee for its impact on chapter 6 (Sound recordings).

Nancy also gave an update on the work of the MLA/RBMS Joint Committee on Early Printed Music. She noted that the question of what format these guidelines would take (whether 5 manuals or one) is being considered again, and that the committee strongly prefers the original concept of separate manuals for each format. Other issues the committee is considering include a separate section in the manual to address the cataloging of music manuscripts and the problems of title page transcription. The committee is now testing an “alpha” version of the guidelines and intends to have a “beta” version ready by the beginning of June to be tested by interested catalogers from outside the committee.

An open question period followed the presentations of the two subcommittees.

Submitted by Nancy Lorimer, SDC Chair

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Last updated March 14, 2001