BCC2002/SAS/2 MLA 2002 Report

BCC2002/SAS/2

Subcommittee on Subject Access
Report from the 2002 Las Vegas Conference

Members: Michael Colby (Chair), Drew Beisswenger, Ray Heigemier, Reneč McBride, Mark McKnight, Geraldine Ostrove, Patricia Thomson, Wendy Sistrunk

The open meeting of the Subject Access Subcommittee was held on February 20, 2002 at the annual MLA meeting in Las Vegas. It was held in conjunction with Authorities Subcommittee. The following presentation was heard:

Summary: As a joint project of the American Folklore Society and the American Folklife Center, work has begun in the creation of a thesaurus to provide subject access to ethnic and folk materials held in archives. The project is just in the beginning stages. In its initial meetings, the group has determined that there is a need to develop a standard nomenclature for these materials and endorsed the idea that preservation without access is pointless. The next steps in the project will be to survey collections and to develop a prototype for the thesaurus.

In its business meeting, the Subcommittee continued to work on planning a preconference workshop on Library of Congress Subject Headings. The workshop would be part of the series of SACO workshops which LC has been presenting around the country, but would include music-specific sessions. The subcommittee will continue to communicate with the LC Cataloging Policy and Support Office, the MLA Education Committee and MOUG in planning this workshop; the target date for presentation is at the 2004 MLA Meeting.

Topics that the Subcommittee is interested in exploring in the near future include the following: Libraries whose subject access diverges from standard use of LCSH; the history of music subject heading practice at LC; uses of controlled vocabulary for music outside of cataloging; international perspectives on music subject access; and the OCLC FAST project.

Submitted by Michael Colby

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Last updated July 30, 2002