BCC2002/SDC/1
REPORT OF THE 2002 MIDWINTER CC:DA MEETING
New Orleans, LA
January 19 & 22, 2002
Reports
Report from the Library of Congress (Barbara Tillett)
U.S Postal Service delivery to the Library has been suspended since October 17 because of the anthrax scare. LC buildings were closed from Oct. 18 to Oct. 25 to facilitate environmental tests of the buildings. Resumption of receipt of US mail is dependent on the establishment of an off-site mail-processing center for the Library and Congressional offices. No firm date has been set. The Library did receive a substantial amount of money from Congress to replace irradiated books.
Barbara Tillett returned to her position as Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office in August, and Tom Yee returned to his position as Assistant Chief. Training is underway as the LC expects to upgrade to Voyager 2000.1.3 in February. Data conversion is scheduled to begin on Feb. 15 and expected to take from one to two weeks, during which staff will not be able to perform work in the production database. CDS will not distribute records during this time and the OPAC will be frozen. This implementation will not include vernacular display of JACKPHY characters nor access to authority records. LC is also working to enable expansion of public access to the OPAC.
Music and Sound Recordings teams 1-2 have cleared 18,797 discs from the 78-rpm album set arrearage. Completion of all 5000 titles is expected by Spring 2002.
LC implemented Amendments 2001 on Dec. 1, 2001 and have decided to use the optional conventional terminology in Chapter 9. Instead of “1 DVD” as in the example, they will use “1 DVD_ROM”. The next Amendments packages (2002) will include the revised Chapter 3 and Chapter 12. LC is targeting Sept. 1, 2002 to implement these changes.
Report from the IFLA Section on Cataloging (Glenn Patton, Barbara Tillett)
The 67th conference was held Aug. 16-25, 2001 in Boston. More than 5500 paid registrants from more than 150 countries attended, the largest ever, with 1316 attendees from the United States.
Christine Deschamps, the current president was re-elected to a two-year term. Kay Raseroka, Director of the University of Botswana Library, was elected to the new office of President-Elect. Barbara Tillett was re-elected to a second 2-year term as Chair of the Section of Cataloging.
The ISBD Review Group, led by John Byrum, has reviewed and resolved comments from the worldwide review of the current
revision of ISBD(M) for monographs and expects to complete work at the end of 2001. Work also continues on guidelines for
the application of ISBDs to publications whose description requires the application of multiple ISBDs. A proposal for
worldwide review is to be completed by March 2002.
http://www.ala.org/alcts/you/ifla/iflareport2001.html
Report of the ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee
Only short summaries are given below. The full JSC report is available on the CC:DA web page at http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/jsc0110.html.
Chapters 3 & 12 (Maps; Serials & Continuing Resources)
The chapters must go to the publisher by Feb. 28 and will be published in the new edition of AACR in July 2002. There will be a pre-publication introductory session to Chapter 12 at ALA Annual.
Appendix of Major Changes (4JSC/ALA/34 et al.)
This appendix is intended to guide catalogers in determining when to create a new record for a resource aor to handle changes with notes in an existing record. The document went to JSC and to LA, ACOC, CCC, but no consensus was reached on whether to add the chapter. CC:DA was asked to put the appendix on hold for now. JSC will discuss it again at their May meeting in term of related initiatives, including the reorganization of Part I. JSC is also considering moving parts of the appendix to the new introductory chapter, the relation of the appendix to chapters 12 and 21, and how the appendix fits with a reorganized/restructured rules with a different approach to class of materials concept.
Specific characteristics of electronic resources (4JSC/ALA/36 et al.)
The task force has been considering various options to proposed changes to Chapter 9. The first is the proposal to drop Area 3 (Material Specific Details) from the chapter, and to put the information in either Area 5 (Physical Description) or 7 (Notes). The second is a proposal to make conventional terminology the norm, rather than an option as it is currently; and the third, whether to blend content and carrier in Area 5 for direct and/or indirect resources. JSC has given the report to its constituents, but there had not yet been enough time to fully consider the proposal. A straw poll on the alternatives offered in the ALA proposal would be taken the end of January.
Making the Rule of 3 optional (4JSC/ACOC/1 et al.)
On seeing the changes to AACR for this proposal, JSC thinks a complete revision of chapter 21 is needed. JSC needs to decide on a direction for chapter 21 and will charge a group to do the work. The revision itself has been tabled for now.
Prototype of reorganized Part I of AACR
The task force was charged with examining the prototype of part I of AACR2 created using Cataloger’s Desktop to rearrange the existing text of Part I into a text that groups rules according to ISBD areas and determining whether this rearrangement is what was suggested in Delsey’s The Logical Structure of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules to 1) determine whether such a reorganization would be practical and user friendly for cataloguers; 2) to identify areas where the reorganization does not work as well as the existing arrangement; and 3) to suggest alternative possible reorganization(s) of the rules. The task force submitted its report, stating that the prototype in its present was more a rearrangement rather than a reorganization. It was pointed out that the “reorganization” highlighted discrepancies and redundancies between chapters. JSC asked that a new task force be appointed to look at these and decide a) whether some rules from chapters could go in chapter 1; b) if discrepancies are necessary or could be normalized. A task force was formed and volunteers were asked to sign up. JSC also found the alternate organization of the rules in the report (section 4b) especially promising as an example of a possible alternate conceptual organization of the code (a break from the class of materials concept).
Format Variation Working Group (interim report)
The group has been studying models for expression-based cataloging and conducted an initial cataloging exercise to test the feasibility of these models. So far, it has proved to be difficult.
Task Force Reports
Below are summaries of selected reports. For all reports and available texts, see the CC:DA web page.
Final report of the Task Force on ISO Harmonization
(http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-iso1.html#report)
The task force has been looking at ways of harmonizing AACR with ISO standards, primarily for abbreviations and symbols. They have recommended removing the period from the metric symbols cm, m, mm, & km and to change m. per sec. to m/s. These are in accordance with ISO standards and also with the ISBDs. Other possible harmonizations, including changing the abbreviation hr. to h were not introduced, since they are not in the ISBDs and are not universally understood.
Report of the Task Force on Specific Characteristics of Electronic Resources
(http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-scer1.html)
The current key issues and recommendations of the task force are: 1) Eliminate Area 3; 2) for direct resources put area 3 information in both areas 5 & 7, perhaps starting with maps and phasing in other formats as terminology issues are resolved and for remote resources to use only area 7; 3) de-emphasize use of “computer optical disc” and use “conventional terminology” instead. The other issue is whether to blend content and carrier in Area 5. This last brought about a discussion of whether content/carrier examples should be in Chapter 9 or in the content chapters. The JSC representative asked for a poll of the communities most using these chapters.
Report from ALA Publishing Services
A new edition of AACR will be published in July, 2002 which will include the new chapters 3 & 12. AACR will become a looseleaf with this edition, with updates available on the web or (perhaps) by subscription, but without renumbering of the pages (extra pages will be numbered 1.1a, b, etc.). Also, ALA Editions will publish a new edition each year incorporating the updates. The American version will be on 8 ½ x 11 paper and sold in a 5-ring binder, though compatible with a 3-ring. The British version will be in a 2-ring binder on A4 paper.
There was much discussion about the drawbacks of this plan from both the committee and audience, particularly: the different page numbering that would occur between the new and updated (by web updates) editions; the inability to print updates on 2 sides of a page (making the binder too small eventually); the lack of availability of 5-hole punches. CC:DA decided to write up a summary of this, with its own recommendations, and send it to ALA Editions.
New rule change proposals
Proposal to change rule 7.0B, Sources of Information (ALCTS/MRC; McCafferty) (CC:DA/MRC/2001/1)
http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/mrc1.pdf
The proposal is intended to clarify the chief source of information on a videorecording. It was sent back for revision.
Proposal on changes to 26.3A6, Abbreviations (PCC/BSC; Caldwell) (CC:DA/PCC/2002/1)
http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/mrc1.pdf
This proposal is intended to give guidelines on cross references for abbreviations and symbols in authority records. Concern was expressed over the potential scope of this change and the possible need for a lot of research. The proposal was sent back to be reworded.
Submitted by Nancy Lorimer
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Last updated July 19, 2002