The Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) met in three sessions during the ALA Annual meeting in Philadelphia. The Chair, Cheri Folkner (Boise State University), led the discussions.

This report focuses on items of interest to the music library community. For more information about the meeting and for reports about activities mentioned below, please see the CC:DA web page at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/index.html.  Presentation is more topical than chronological.

Reports

CC:DA Chair.  The full report is at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/docs/chair40.pdf . The Chair reviewed the votes taken by electronic mail since Annual 2007, and asked for and received confirmation of the results.  Most of the votes related to RDA (Resource Description and Access); some authorized the JSC (Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA) liaison, John Attig, to make responses to RDA drafts and issues on the CC:DA’s behalf.  Another vote resulted in a refusal to pass on to the JSC the PCC proposal on making series transcription optional in serials cataloging.  Of particular interest to the music community was that authorizing a response to a background paper from the CILIP representative to the JSC.  This paper considered the impact of proposed language in the Draft Principles of the IFLA Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code (IME ICC) about uniform titles; it gives primacy to the “commonly known title in the language and script of the catalogue when one exists for the resource” in choosing a uniform title, as opposed to AACR2’s emphasis on using the composer’s original title.  The MLA Liaison and Kathy Glennan, JSC member, contributed to ALA’s response, which recommended against adopting the IME ICC recommendation for RDA.  That response is available at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/5ciliprep1-alaresp.pdf

Library of Congress (Barbara Tillett, LC liaison to CC:DA). For a detailed report of LC initiatives, visit: http://www.loc.gov/ala/mw-2008-update.html

Barbara Tillett reviewed highlights from her report.  Issues of particular interest to the music community include:

• Continued activities of the Section 108 Study Group, working toward recommendations for legislation to allow reasonable uses of copyrighted works by libraries and archives in the digital age.  A final report is expected for early 2008, with possible recommendations for legislation from the Copyright Office to follow.  Web site: http://www.loc.gov/section108
• The issuance of the draft report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, a LC-sponsored group of librarians and information providers and vendors (OCLC, Google, Microsoft).  The group’s final report was issued on January 9.  One recommendation was that work on RDA be suspended pending further research and usability studies.  This was perhaps the biggest source of “buzz” in the cataloging community at Midwinter, in part because of ambiguous statements about LC’s intentions vis-à-vis continued participation in RDA development.  Web site: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future
• Progress toward providing non-Roman data in authority records in the LC/NAF.  “Regular” 4XX and 7XX fields will be used for the non-Latin script forms.  The inclusion of such data in authority records will occur no earlier than April 2008.  NACO participation will be addressed later.  Some initiatives regarding use of non-Latin script in bibliographic records are also underway.  LC has begun use of Transliterator, an application jointly developed by David Bucknum of LC and Gary Strawn of Northwestern University.  It allows catalogers working in Voyager to pair fields of Romanized data with their non-romanized equivalents (MARC 880 fields), and does some automatic transliteration and “de-transliteration” of fields.  LC offers the software to interested Voyager libraries.
• New editions of the Library of Congress Classification Schedules have appeared for classes KDZ, KG-KH, G, D-DR, KZ, Q, and E-F.  New editions for classes KF, L, and PR-PS, PZ are expected in spring 2008.
• Implementation of form/genre headings has begun with the release of authority record containing authorized LCSH headings (MARC tag 155) in September.  An instruction sheet in the Subject Cataloging Manual (H 1913) explains their use.  The current records cover only moving image form/genre headings; records for other areas, including music, are still in the discussion stage. 
• CDS customer service issues: Tillett has been acting head; continued regrets for problems; 40% of staff retired in 2006, and subsequent hiring freeze hampered efforts to improve.  Hiring freeze has not yet been lifted.
• LC has continued a project to populate popular music sound recording bib records with metadata leased from All-Music Guide.  The resulting records are at Level 3 encoding, but contain full contents notes.
• Both collections and staff of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division are now at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA.  Staff transferred to Culpeper includes the Music and Sound Recordings Team 3, formerly within the Special Materials Cataloging Division.
• Planning for the move of Music Teams 1 and 2 from the Special Materials Cataloging Division to the Music Division continues.

ALA Publishing Services (Don Chatham, Associate Executive Director)

Chatham addressed the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control’s recommendation that work on RDA be suspended by stressing that the Committee of Principals is committed to the current publication timetable.  A vendor (Cognilore) has been chosen for the RDA authoring software, and a demo may be ready by ALA Annual, but definitely by IFLA in August.  A non-live prototype should be available within the next month or so.  Chatham mentioned some of the anticipated features—search history, a linked index, the ability to bookmark, ability to export sections as PDFs for printing, a portable “user profile,” options to view or hide examples, and links between RDA and corresponding sections of AACR2.  This last feature was not universally embraced by committee members, who were concerned about potential confusion and promoting resistance to change.  Chatham replied that the crosswalk can be turned off if desired.  There is still significant desire for a print version, though the sheer size of the document is posing major challenges.  One anticipated attempt to make the online version more appealing to small libraries and infrequent users is the option for a per-use fee rather than a subscription.  One committee member used the report to plead for better writing in future drafts. 

Joint Steering Committee (John Attig, ALA Representative). John offered the PowerPoint presentation prepared for the RDA Update Forum as a surrogate for his report.  That presentation is available at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/jca-philadelphia-20080113.pdf.  A companion report by Marjorie Bloss, RDA Product Manager, is at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/mb-philadelphia-20080113.pdf.     

JSC met in October 2007 in Chicago; for the JSC’s “Outcomes” summary, see http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/0710out.html. The major news is the new organization of RDA, which provides a more explicit alignment with FRBR and intends to be more suited to the relational/object-oriented databases seen as the optimal implementation scenario of the future, while still being usable with other scenarios, such as a “flat record structure” (the current environment in most catalogs) and the “composite bibliographic record” (in which access points are linked to authority records). 

The concept of “authority control” takes some interesting turns in this environment, John pointed out.  Currently, authority records record facts (670 fields) and decisions (most everything else); in general, the facts are not recorded as discrete data elements (in MARC, for example, all information from a given source goes into 670 subfield b, regardless of what it conveys).  In RDA, the process starts with recording facts, or attributes, with provision for differentiating data elements being recorded (without requiring it), and then access points can be decided on.  Access points themselves are not data elements.  One implication for this might be a change in the practice for undifferentiated names.  Currently, one authority record can represent multiple persons; each person is represented by 670 fields that present facts about the person.  The persons are all accorded the same preferred access point; though some might also be represented by variant access points, such distinctions are only apparent from viewing the 670 fields.  In RDA, the emphasis on identification could produce multiple authority records that have the same preferred access point; by using an identifier to stand for the authority record in other records, the differentiation can be made without the need to produce a unique access point.

Some of the more significant outcomes of the October meeting were 1) confirming changes to practice in formulating uniform titles for portions of the Bible to make them somewhat less Christo-centric; 2) considering treaties to be collaborations, allowing the preferred access point for the treaty to include the preferred access point for the first-named signatory; 3) moving forward with internationalization by replacing directions to record elements in English with directions to record elements in the cataloging agency’s preferred language; 4) identifying a change in mode of issuance or media type as cause for preparing a new description for a resource; 5) accepting the current practice in AACR2 1.1B1 that directs the omission of introductory words from transcriptions of the title proper.

John mentioned that the JSC had brought a discussion paper to MARBI at this meeting to start the discussion on needed changes to accommodate use of RDA with MARC21.  At the same time, the JSC is also encouraging looking ahead to a post-MARC world.  Publication is still scheduled for 2009.

The JSC has made the vast majority of the RDA working documents publicly available at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/working1.html, to provide context for the changes being incorporated into RDA.

The JSC will next meet in April, once again in Chicago.

CC:DA Task Force to Maintain “Differences Between, Changes Within” (Kevin Randall).  This task force has now been discharged, and the revised document is available as a free download from the ALCTS Web site (go to http://www.ala.org/ala/alctscontent/alctspubsbucket/webpublications/cataloging/newrecord/differences.cfm).

CC:DA Task Force on Specialist Cataloging Manuals (Mark Scharff).  The Task Force was charged with producing a list of standards and manuals that would be useful for specialist communities or for working with specialized cataloging issues, and would have some usefulness in an RDA environment.  The list would not be within the text of RDA, but provided a link in the online version.  On the cusp of submitting a report and list, the TF received input from the JSC that indicated a desire for a far less focused, and much more dynamic, document than that described in the original charge.  The Task Force then spent more energies on developing a structure for the existing resources, and some guidance for extensibility.  CC:DA accepted the report with some amendments.  The Task Force will await feedback from JSC as to whether further work is needed.

Task Force on CC:DA’s Internal and External Communication (Laura Smart, and including MLA members Jim Alberts and Matthew Wise). The TF is developing an electronic contact list for external communication for specific areas (e.g. CJK, maps, music).  Planning for migrating the CC:DA Web site to ALA continues.  The Task Force’s scope has extended to cover wikis and other such forms of communication.  Work is just about done on setting up a CC:DA mailing list to which non-members could subscribe for read-only access.

CC:DA Webmaster (Patricia Hatch).  Patricia was unable to attend ALA, so the committee received a written report detailing progress toward migrating the CC:DA Web site.  She recommended the appointment of a task force to assist with this formidable undertaking.

ALA Representative to NISO (Cindy Hepfer).  Cindy is new to this position, and is trying to expand communication and input to NISO beyond areas within ALCTS.  A number of standards proposals are in the pipeline (preservation products, environmental conditions for exhibits, title pages for conference publications, statistics harvesting, to name some), and CC:DA members and liaisons will be asked to provide input as appropriate.

RDA Implementation Task Force (Cheri Folkner in lieu of Shawne Miksa).  Shawne has recently taken over as chair of the TF, and has to cope with a dearth of documentation.  Ideas have been collected for a program for ALA Annual; more work is needed to secure a program spot, including identifying the target audience—is it “high-level” implementers (networks, systems, administrators) or catalogers?

CC:DA Discussion of RDA Drafts

John Attig led the group in these discussions, which covered Sections 2-4 and 9 of RDA, at varying levels of detail.  While the draft had been available for about a month, committee members were still working through its 463 pages.  Some committee members found the document ambiguous as to what sort of record would contain the data being recorded.  Few comments had been entered in the CC:DA wiki. 

Among general comments from committee and audience members:

1. Among general comments from committee and audience members:
2. There was general agreement that the reconfigured outline for RDA more clearly aligned it with FRBR and FRAD. 
3. Committee members liked the proposed inclusion of placeholders for recording attributes of concept, object, and event (Chapters 12-15), and for those aspects of recording place in Chapter 16 that are outside the scope of AACR2 Chapter 23.  There is no timetable, or even commitment, to filling out these placeholders, but their presence reinforces RDA’s connection to FRBR and FRAD.
4. The principles for using corporate body as part of the preferred access point for a work, outlined in AACR2 21.1B2, are not apparent to some in the RDA draft—at best, scattered; in one opinion, not scattered but removed.
5. Several commented that there were too many “how-to” provisions, rather than statements of principles.
6. Much of the material in these chapters has been brought over from AACR2 with little or no change, for the sake of expediency.  Some AACR2 rules don’t produce the same result when presented within RDA.
7. Content for access points for series is lacking.
8. One audience member characterized the RDA-related sessions at Midwinter as being “gloomy.”  ALA is less enthused about RDA than other constituencies, and John Attig confirmed that ALA is being seen by some in the JSC as “obstructionist.”
9. One audience member called for a truly international code aimed at a maximum range of constituencies.  By analogy with open-source software, he argued that RDA should be free to get more agencies to use it.  John replied that some chunks of RDA that will be freely available.

Among the statements on particular chapters and rules: 

1. Some terms’ definitions vary according to context’ “access point” and its variations were cited in particular.  This was cited as a problem.
2. It’s unclear what Chapter 5 is about—creating access points for bibliographic records, or recording data in authority records.  John replied that the ambiguity was somewhat deliberate—an attempt by the JSC to avoid talking about “records.”.
3. Preferred access points for parts of a work in RDA are constructed following the whole-part formula familiar to music users.  This is a major change for non-music materials, and some questioned what principle was behind this change.
4. The word “General” in the caption for Chapter 6 belies the length and complexity of the chapter.
5. Several times, objections were raised to any use of footnotes in the text of the rules.
6. Some unease was expressed about 6.5, Date of Work.  The word “associated” in the scope statement seemed too vague to some; it was pointed out that a release date pertains to a manifestation.
7. It was opined that Chapter 8’s “difference in name = difference in identity” approach was edging the creation of preferred access points for persons toward that of corporate bodies.  In response to 8.11, This could present difficulties in naming such a person’s works.  Undifferentiated name indicator, a committee member asserted that persons should always be differentiated.
8. There was unhappiness that qualifiers indicating academic degrees are no longer allowed as additions to names.
9. Including Gender (9.8) as an attribute to record proved to be controversial.  While some saw it as useful to assist with searches such as “American women composers,” others saw concerns with privacy, and also with categories that put everything besides “female” and “male” into “other” or “not known.”
10. Concepts in Chapter 10, Identifying families, may be unfamiliar and will need definitions, e.g. the types of family mentioned in 10.4.0.3.
11. In Chapter 11, comments favored consolidating rules for dealing with governmental and non-governmental subordinate bodies.

Other

CC:DA will meet three times at ALA Annual in Anaheim, CA—Friday, June 27, 1:30-5:30; Saturday, June 28, 1:30-5:30; and Monday, June 30, 8:00-12:00. 

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Last updated March 12, 2008