BCC2003/Auth/4
Authorities Subcommittee
2003 Annual Report
Members: Marlena Frackowski (Chair), Anita Breckbill, Bradford Eden,
Candice Feldt, Robert Freeborn, Lucas Graves, Margaret Kaus, Ralph Papakhian, David Sommerfield (LC Representative)
The 2003 annual business meeting of the Authorities Subcommittee took
place on February 13 in Austin, Texas. The open meeting was held as part of a joint Authorities/Descriptive Cataloging
Subcommittee meeting the next day.
During the business meeting Mickey Koth gave a brief update on the
changes intended or introduced to the Types of Compositions Document. According to her, the streamlined procedure for
discussing terms adopted last year was working well, and the Subcommittee agreed to continue it. In the past year several
terms were modified in the Types of Compositions document. Among them: Capricette/Capricetten, Danza/Danzas,
Flourish/Flourishes, Quartettino/Quartettinos, Quintettino/Quintettinos, Ritornello/Ritornelli, Saltarello/Saltarellos,
Sicilana/Sicilianas Terzettino/Terzettinos, Variation/Variations and Volta/Volte. For additional information
regarding modifications, deletions and/or additions to the list of terms please refer to
http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/type2003.htm.
Last year, the Authorities Subcommittee provided comments on the
Interim Report of the PCC SCS Task Group on the Function of the Authority File (available at
http://www.loc/gov/catdir/pcc/tgauthrpt.html.) The report
advocates expanding the maintenance role of the national authority file, and suggests ways to do this. The chair of that
committee, Manon Théroux, acknowledged our comments and recently sent us a “draft” Final Report, due to the
PCC Standing Committee on Standards in April. We have been invited to comment on the draft version of the report before the
final version is submitted.
For the open meeting at the 2004 MLA Annual Conference in Washington DC
the Subcommittee has contacted Sherry Vellucci, who has agreed to speak on some, as yet undetermined, aspect of authority
control for non-MARC data.
Future projects:
Possible rule proposal -- A Subcommittee member voiced concern over a
recent change to the authority record for NAR no97-081207 (Schubert, Franz, 1797-1828. Liederzyklen). This is a collective
title, not the title of a work, and it was felt that such titles should be formulated in English. However, an examination
of AACR2 and the LCRIs indicated that there is nothing to prevent such titles from being formulated in languages other than
English. It was proposed that this might be the subject of a rule proposal, possibly in consultation with the BCC
Descriptive Cataloging Subcommittee. The matter was discussed with Nancy Lorimer, Chair of that subcommittee, and she asked
us to wait until she had seen a draft of the upcoming revision to AACR2 Chapter 25, in hopes that the matter might be
addressed there.
Joint MOUG-Authorities Subcommittee -- Mickey Koth proposed the
formation of a joint MOUG-Authorities Subcommittee group to investigate whether or not the Types Document could be used to
assist automated authority control vendors with developing a suite of standard, automatic flips that would be made
regardless of the absence of a specific 4XX field in the authority record (e.g., all headings of the form
“Trio-sonatas” might be flipped to “Trio sonatas”). This would hopefully improve the quality of the
automated authority services. Terry Simpkins asked Mickey to write a proposal, primarily for clarification of the issues in
preparation for discussions with MOUG to form such a group.
Public notes in name authority records -- A subcommittee member
proposed investigating, through CPSO, the possibility of allowing NACO contributors to use public notes in name authority
records (680 field) to assist patrons. Situations where this would prove especially helpful would include headings for
deceased persons with open dates (“bibliographic undead”), people who were active in more than one field; and
people with common names where, for example, the persons role or occupation might be known, but not his or her dates. This
proposal was greeted with support in conversations following the open meeting, including Sue Vita, LC liaison to BCC. This
seems to be an excellent idea and the Subcommittee will begin work on it.
With regard to Subcommittee membership, Jeannette Thompson's term was
finished in February 2003. Terry Simpkins stepped down as the Chair of the Subcommittee and also finished his term as a
Subcommittee member. Many thanks to both of them for their distinguished service. Marlena Frackowski was appointed the new
Chair in April 2003. In her role as liaison to the ALCTS Media Resources Committee and LITA/ALCTS Authority Control in the
Online Environment Interest Group she attended ALA Annual in Toronto (despite the SARS scare).
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Last updated October 25, 2003