BCC2003/SDC/2

Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging
Report from the 2003 Austin Conference

The Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging held a joint open meeting with the Authorities Subcommittee on Friday, February 14, during the annual MLA meeting in Austin. This report addresses only the Descriptive Cataloging sections of the joint meeting.

Nancy Lorimer highlighted items of interest to music catalogers from her CC:DA Midwinter meeting report. She reported that by March 25, JSC was expecting submissions on the following topics: an interim report by the Task Force on the Reconceptualization of Chapter 9 (by March 1), a report from the Format Variation Working Group of JSC on suggested revisions to Chapter 25 (Uniform titles) in light of FRBR; multiparts rules; a new report from Pat Riva on incorporating FRBR terminology in AACR2; changes in main entry terminology; and on “conventional terminology” or “terms in common use” in Chapters 6 & 7. Nancy also reported that the formerly titled “Appendix on Major and Minor Changes” will be released as a separate publication by ALA Editions within the next year. Nancy’s full report will soon be available on the BCC web page at http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/BCC/bcc.html.

Nancy then related what had happened with conventional terminology over the past year. In the summer, the Canadian Committee on Cataloging submitted a rule change proposal to JSC to introduce conventional terminology into Chapters 6 & 7, and in keeping with a pending change to Chapter 9, to make conventional terminology the rule, rather than an option. The Subcommittee of Descriptive Cataloging of MLA, on behalf of the Bibliographic Control Committee, submitted to CC:DA a detailed response rejecting the proposal. The Subcommittee also submitted a counterproposal, developed by Joe Bartl and David Sommerfeld of LC, in which the current SMDs would be maintained but further uncontrolled information could be put in parentheses to supplement the SMD. Because of our response and counterproposal, CC:DA rejected the CCC proposal.

The response from JSC at their September meeting came as a surprise. It seems that while ALA considered “conventional terminology” to be uncontrolled vocabulary, the other constituents intended it to be controlled vocabulary, that is, a list of controlled terms that would supplement and/or replace the current SMDs. JSC thus rejected the MLA counterproposal “because they were not interested in controlled vocabulary.” The Subcommittee is now looking at acceptable terms and hopes to present them either as a rule change proposal or a counterproposal in the near future.

There was some audience discussion about the terms SDC is thinking of adding to AACR2 (these being compact disc, DVD-audio and super audio compact disc). There was a suggestion that DVD-audio should be DVD-audio disc, to which there was general agreement. There was also agreement that we should keep the SMDs as general and flexible as possible and that systems requirements notes would be more often necessary with the new formats.

Lastly, Nancy reported that JSC had formed the joint ALA/BL Task Force on the Reconceptualization of Chapter 9. This task force is charged with rethinking the scope of Chapter 9 (Electronic Resources) and for introducing potential rule changes to other chapters in Part I of AACR2 to cover electronic manifestations. Nancy is on this task force, and has been assigned to suggest potential changes to Chapters 5 & 6, along with an as yet unnamed representative from the British Library. She pointed out that these changes would necessitate the addition of new SMDs to the two chapters.

After formal reports, the meeting continued with open questions from the audience. There was a question regarding the future of ISBD punctuation and whether it could be replaced by some sort of encoding. This resulted in a discussion on the relationship of AACR2 and MARC. Another question was about how to catalog CD-R’s that had been made as preservation copies of analog tapes. This raised the further question of what constitutes a reproduction for cataloging purposes.

More information of the activities of the Subcommittee will soon be available on our website at: http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/BCC/Descriptive/Descriptive.html. We welcome comments and concerns about descriptive cataloging issues at any time.

Submitted by Nancy Lorimer
Chair, Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging

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Last updated June 7, 2003