The Subcommittee for Descriptive Cataloging held its business meeting for 2009 on Saturday, Feb. 23 from 12:00-1:30 pm.  Over 20 visitors complemented the six Subcommittee members present. Discussion of Resource Description and Access (RDA) was the main business item—in particular, prioritizing areas where the Music Library Association had issues with proposals from the Library of Congress for revisions to the full draft of RDA Chapter 6, especially those instructions for naming musical works. Mark Scharff, SDC chair and MLA liaison to ALA’s Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) and Kathy Glennan, BCC chair and voting member of CC:DA, had been invited to attend a session of the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA (JSC) during its March meeting in Chicago, as advisors to the ALA representative during the discussion of the proposal.  The outcomes of that session would dictate the text of the first publication of RDA.  The areas of contention between MLA (and by extension, ALA) and LC were many, and Scharff and Glennan asked for some input on identifying the most important items. 

A robust and wide-ranging discussion ensued. Among the areas where consensus seemed to form: 1) MLA wishes to continue translating non-distinctive titles for musical works into the language of the cataloging agency (English for most of us) when the title is cognate with an English term. The closed list in the LC proposal was too small, and there were issues with the underlying philosophy that there was insufficient value in using consistent terms across composers’ oeuvres. 2) When not fully analyzing incomplete compilations of works of a single composer in a particular form, genre, or type, adding “Selections” to the preferred title should not be optional when creating an access point. That is, “Symphonies” should not be the title portion of a preferred access point for a resource containing Beethoven’s odd-numbered symphonies. 3) Music catalogers wish to retain the current practice of treating the title of a part of a work as distinctive in the preferred access point for that part, regardless of whether or not the part title itself is non-distinctive.  In simpler terms, a movement from a Haydn symphony titled “Menuet” will use that title in the preferred access point for that movement, not “Minuets, orchestra, [key].”   The LC proposal for how to name parts of works sent such titles through the translation/singular-plural process before being recorded. 4) A proposed instruction that would allow the designation of a particular keyboard instrument in preferred access points when doing so produces a more rational filing arrangement (e.g. Mozart or Haydn keyboard sonatas) must not be generalized to all time periods.  Such an instruction produces ludicrous results when applied to 20^th-century composers.

Other issues elicited less agreement, or a wait-and-see approach. Principal among these: 1) Using “found terms” to name large ensembles (e.g. “variety orchestra,” “wind ensemble”) in lieu of the three terms currently employed (“orchestra,” “string orchestra,” “band”). There is interest in more specificity, but issues around numbering, language forms, ambiguities, etc. that bear closer consideration. 2) Naming musical works with new text and title.  For dramatic works, this currently takes the form of the preferred access point for the original, with the new title in parentheses.  Extending this practice to non-dramatic works (e.g. “God save the King (America)” was an MLA proposal.  Sentiment seemed to be to hold off. 3) Naming adaptations of folk/ethnic music.  The immediate issue had to do with problems in the wording of the instruction, but a larger question was whether such adaptations should continue to be named by title alone, which seemed to imply that there was a recognizable “Ur-form” of the work to which an adapter’s contributions could be compared to determine whether those contributions had produced a new work.  Most agreed that this was a far larger issue than could be addressed at this time.

The subcommittee also noted an IFLA proposal for a new Area 0 in ISBD, to contain information about content and carrier that is currently found in the General Material Designation. There seemed to be little issue with the proposal.  The subcommittee also brainstormed future directions. One possibility would be a plenary session on RDA for the 2010 meeting, and/or a preconference for 2011, when implementation decisions are expected to have been made. Other suggestions: a report from the U. of Rochester on the Extensible Catalog; an orientation session on FRBR; and an instructive session on FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data).

The Chair recognized outgoing members Lois Schultz (Duke University) and Steve Henry (University of Maryland—College Park) for their years of service.

Submitted by Mark Scharff, Chair, SDC

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Last updated April 16, 2009