BCC98/SDC/3

REPORT OF THE 1998 CC:DA ANNUAL MEETING

The Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access met on June 27 and 29 during the 1998 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Following are highlights of those meetings.

Report from the Chair: D. Kinney announced two additions to the CC:DA membership, the new liaison to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (J. Schuitema) and the new coordinator of the Committee's website (J. Attig). The website, which provides links to many of the reports mentioned below, is available at http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/ccda.html. A new ALA publication by M. Yee and S. Shatford Layne, Improving Online Public Access Catalogs, was lauded. And the CC:DA-sponsored preconference on international cataloging standardization, "What in the World...," was considered a success with 71 registrants.

Report on Project REUSE: M. Muennich (Universitatsbibliothek Heidelberg) summarized the results of the first Project REUSE, which attempted to harmonize AACR2 and MARC with RAK and MAB2, their German counterparts. Project REUSE+, a sequel project, has more recently studied ways in which the international exchange of records for multipart items could be improved. B. Eversberg (Universitatsbibliothek Braunschweig) explained that German catalogers create analytic records for each physical item and then link them hierarchically to set/series records. He urged Anglo- American catalogers to do the same in the name of cooperation. For more details about this proposal, see http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/allegro/formate/reusep.htm

Report from CONSER: J. Hirons reported on the latest thinking within the cataloging community with regard to looseleaf publications, databases, and websites. Initially dividing the bibliographic universe into two types of entities (i.e. first issued as complete and as not complete), she charted the resulting hierarchy into "monographic entities" issued in single and multiple parts and "ongoing entities" issued in determinable successive parts (sets), indeterminable successive parts (series and serials), and integrable parts (looseleaves, databases, and websites). Based upon this model, CONSER will be preparing draft rule change proposals for submission to CC:DA.

Report from the ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee: B. Schottlaender reported that work emanating from the Toronto Conference continues, as evidenced by the current efforts of T. Delsey (data modeling of AACR principles), CONSER (seriality), and the Rule 0.24 Task Force (content vs. carrier). MLA's proposal regarding "work" in connection with music uniform titles remains in the JSC pipeline.

Report of the Task Force on Rule 0.24: The Task Force has been charged with evaluating AACR2's cardinal principle (i.e. to base description upon physical format, rather than intellectual content). M. Yee announced that issues such as the organization of Part I, the description of material to which more than one chapter applies (such as reproductions), and the definition of "edition" are currently being discussed.

Report of the Task Force on Conference Proceedings II: M. Yee referred the Committee's attention to the final report of the Task Force (see the CC:DA website). Following discussion, Option 2 was preferred, which proposes that the perceived restrictions of capitalization in Rule 21.1B1 (definition of a named corporate body) be removed to allow for cataloger judgement.

Report from the LC Representative: B. Tillett announced that a new LCRI will allow for the addition of artist-uniform title headings (for artworks) to the name authority file. Beginning this summer, core-level cataloging will be employed throughout the Library of Congress. And the Library has purchased a new integrated library system from Endeavor, with an implementation deadline of October 1999.

Report from ALA Editions: D. Chatham reported that the JSC's final review of AACRe (electronic version) is nearing completion. Although a paper version, incorporating all amendments to date, will be published simultaneously, it has been decided that an amendments package will not be issued separately. The Committee expressed concern about the financial burden which this would cause many institutions who would need to replace all copies of the old version.

Report of the Task Force on ISBD(ER) Harmonization: L. Howarth outlined the Task Force's intended plan of action. The "fast-track areas" (2, 4, 7, and the GMD) will be reviewed and "harmonized" with AACR2 first, while "contentious areas" (0.5, 3, 5, and the Glossary) will need to cook for awhile. Manageable groupings of areas were assigned to small reviewing teams and procedures for gaining feedback from the electronic resource community were discussed. It was also noted that several other groups within ALA were currently looking at Chapter 9 and that timely communication with them would be beneficial.

Report of the Task Force on Metadata and the Cataloging Rules: S. Kelley reported that although the schemes reviewed by the Task Force (i.e. TEI Header and Dublin Core) contained metadata which was useful information for catalogers, it was not a substitute for cataloging. As such, their final report suggested that perhaps metadata should be added to the lists of sources of information (with examples) in Rules 9.0B1, 9.7B3, 9.7B4, and 9.7B7. It is hoped that evaluation of other metadata schemes, such as VRA, will be more profitable.

Joint meeting of MARBI and CC:DA: The CC:DA meeting culminated in an hour-long discussion about issues of common concern to the members of MARBI. Using a list of questions provided by J. Attig as a springboard, both groups seemed to be on the same wavelength with regard to issues of content vs. carrier, general and specific material designation, and seriality.

Respectfully submitted,
Matthew Wise, Chair, Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging

Return to BCC 1998 Documents Menu
Return to BCC Historical Documents Menu
Return to BCC Home Page

Last updated February 4, 2000