BCC98/C/7

Report from Boston: Bibliographic Control Committee Meeting

The Bibliographic Control Committee (BCC) met three times during the Boston meeting. Following tradition, the open meeting on Friday morning included previews of the four BCC Subcommittee open meetings which followed, reports from the liaisons, and a cataloging question-and-answer session. Information about subcommittee activities is described elsewhere in this issue.

In the area of personnel changes, new to the BCC this year is the position of Recording Secretary. Dennis Davies-Wilson of the University of New Mexico--Los Alamos Branch, has been appointed to this four-year position. BCC also acknowledged the substantial contrributions of two of the subcommittee chairs who are rotating off at the close of this meeting, and welcomed two new subcommittee chairs. Karen Little is has finished her term as chair of the Subcommittee on MARC Formats, and stepping into that position is Kathryn Glennan from the University of Southern California. Harriette Hemmasi has completed her term as chair of the Subject Access Subcommittee, and Michael Colby of the University of California, Davis will be taking on the leadership of that group. Christine Zuger is the new BCC liaison with WLN, replacing Greta de Groat. Mark McKnight of the University of North Texas is replacing Michael Colby as chair of the Music Thesaurus Project Advisory Task Force.

The BCC is pleased to announce the availability of its website, which can be found through a link under "Committees" on the Association’s website. We plan to maintain this site with current reports and links so that it will be of practical use for music catalogers.

At the BCC meetings in 1997 in New Orleans, there was much interest and dialogue about the concept of the core record. At the Boston meeting, a plenary session on this topic was offered to help meet some of the information needs of music catalogers.

As announced in a previous MLA Newsletter, the MLA Board approved a change to the Administrative Handbook regarding the term of service for committee appointments. The BCC used this opportunity to re-examine itself and looked closely at subcommittee membership. We are committed to supporting this guideline and have taken steps to track subcommittee appointments closely to ensure both a stable base of rotating expertise within each subcommittee and regular opportunities for the MLA membership to contribute their talents in service to the organization.

BCC finished its review of the Sheet Music Cataloging Guidelines and forwarded them to the editor of the MLA Technical Reports series. BCC also reviewed cataloging guidelines developed by the Dance Heritage Coalition and made extensive comments for appropriate revisions. The group will be reviewing the MLA Automation Subcommittee’s document entitled "Automation Requirements for Music Materials."

During the coming year, BCC will be working on reviewing and revising the charges to each subcommittee, as well as to the BCC itself. We are also working through the process for establishing a new working group on form and genre terminology as a starting point for the Music Thesaurus Project.

Submitted by Linda Barnhart, BCC Chair

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Last updated April 18, 2000