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Minutes of the PLA Cataloging Needs of Public Libraries Committee

ALA Midwinter Conference
Washington, D.C.
January 15, 2001

The meeting began at 2:00 p.m.

1. Approval of the Minutes from ALA Annual meeting, July 10, 2000
   The minutes were approved.
   
   
2. Reports from Liaisons
   
   
1. Winton Matthews started with a report for Library of Congress
   
   
• Digital Future
  The Library will begin to acquire its first complete set of electronic journal archives this month through an agreement; and the American Physical Society (APS) will send the Library the complete archives of eight of its premier physics journals in electronic form.
• Web Preservation Project (WPP)
  Web Preservation project, a new study group organized to investigate the feasibility of capturing, saving and preserving collections from select Websites. The Copyright Office has begun to look into the legal questions surrounding archiving materials from the Internet. The crucial factor is the economic impact on copyright owners, but other matters are also being examined such as the right of institutions to work in partnership to download and edit open access materials for preservation.
• The future of National Digital Library (NDL)
  The Library of Congress is in the process of developing a strategic plan for its future in the digital age. The plan focuses on issues relating to the collection, storage and preservation of electronic media and digital items.
• LC Integrated Library System
  The Library is working with Endeavor Information Systems, Inc. to prepare for implementation of the Voyager Release 2000 software targeted for May 2001. In preparation, the Library loaded the beta versions of Voyager Release 2000 on its server. Release 2000 includes the capability to display Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Hebrew vernacular characters in the WebOPAC, also authority records. On October 1, 2000, the American library community, including LC, OCLC, and RLG, began using pinyin as the standard romanization scheme for Chinese characters in bibliographic and authority records. OCLC and RLIN through a cooperative partnership supplied Wade-Giles romanized authority records with their pinyin updates for load into the LC ILS and distribution through the MARC Distribution Service by the start date. These converted authority records will be available in the LC Online Catalog and via Z39.50 in May 2001. RLG began to convert LC's bibliographic records on November 20, 2000. OCLC will convert CONSER records after January1, 2001.
• New Book Program
  The New Books program would build on the ECIP program and would enable publishers to post such information elements as the image of the book jacket, book jacket blurb, table of contents, sample text, URL of publisher's homepage, URL where book can be purchased, author email address, etc. on the LC homepage while simultaneously requesting CIP data. This program would work in conjunction with another proposal program known as the Library of Congress partnership program. This module would enable any reader anywhere to identify forthcoming titles of interest and immediately request his/her local library to purchase the book for his/her use immediately upon publication.
• African Americans in Subject Headings
  The subject heading Afro-Americans and subject headings that included the adjectival qualifier Afro-American were changed to African Americans and African American. Effective December 1, 2000, LC catalogers are assigning only the new forms African Americans and African American… as subject headings in current bibliographic records.
• Art cataloging changes
  On February 1, 2001, the location of geographic subdivisions in art subject headings will be changed to conform to the standard order used for most other topics with geographic subdivisions preceding chronological subdivisions. Headings such as Drawing ¾ 20th century ¾ France will be reformulated as Drawing, France ¾ 20th century. A new instruction sheet will be added to the Subject Cataloging Manual to provide for free-floating subdivisions under art headings. Cataloging of art materials will thus more closely resemble cataloging in other disciplines.
• LC Classification
  The 2000 edition of E-F, KBR, KBU, and KK-KKC, were sent for publication. In addition, 2001 edition of PL-PM was sent for publication. Changes were made in the DS and PL subclasses to reflect the change to the pinyin romanization of Chinese. § LCCN Restructuring to Four-Digit Year On January 2, 2001, LC began the use of a restructured LCCN for both authority and bibliographic records. The restructured LCCN now contains a four-digit year and there is no longer a "trailing blank" at the end of the number. Note that LCCNs in the old structure (two-digit year; trailing blank) are not being changed and will exist simultaneous with numbers reflecting the new structure.
• MARC Language Code List
  The new 2000 edition of the MARC language code list was issued with substantial revisions to make it compatible with the ISO language code standard. Approximately 25 language codes were changed, and additional language codes were included.
• Decimal Classification (Dewey)
  Decimal Classification Division classifiers at the Library of Congress assigned Dewey Decimal Classification numbers to 52,669 bibliographic records during the last six months of calendar year 2000. There are some changes in DDC. 510 is up to discussion and Law section will be redone. There is a presentation entitled Introduction to Web Dewey in CORC available on OCLC Website. Web Dewey links to LC authority records.
• Collaborative Digital Reference Service
  Pilot phases and planning continue for the Collaborative Digital Reference Services (CDRS), which will provide library-quality reference service to all users any time anywhere, through an international digital network of libraries and similar services and organizations. Three pilot phases were planned, and by the end of the fiscal year, pilot two had been completed and steps for implementing pilot three were well underway. The third pilot, which will involve a minimum of 60 members, began in November 2000.
  
  
2. Linda Gabel from OCLC gave her report.
   
   
• She mentioned that the authority records for African American has been updated, and the cleanup for the bib records also completed.
• On December 7, 2000, OCLC implemented new LCCN structure. You need to include a hyphen when you do the LCCN search, but drop a hyphen in ISSN search. OCLC Technical Bulletin 240 has the explanation.
• WebDewey will be made available to all non-OCLC members as a stand alone subscription service.
• An electronic version of Abridged Dewey will eventually be an add-on to CatExpress.
• In response to Mike Tribby's comments (LC doesn't go back to add 520 summary note to non-fiction materials), Linda stated that OCLC has a way to merge records to retain both 520 and 505 notes.
• With the publication of the second print edition of the Guidelines for Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, etc. (GSAFD), the Subcommittee on Authority Records for GSAFD suggested that there might be demand for machine-readable version of authority records derived from the section on genre access. The recommendations as approved by the ALCTS Board of Directors stated that "ALA Editions should make the file available via ftp, for a on-time charge to individual customers not to exceed the cost of the print GSAFD… ALA Editions should investigate making the genre thesaurus available as a Web page. The ftp file should be made available for distribution as soon as the additional testing described above has been completed. The availability of the file should be publicized via discussion lists, LC Cataloging Newsline, the ALCTS Newsletter, AN2, American Libraries, and Public Library Association publications." David Miller presented the final report of the SAC Subcommittee on Authority Records for GSAFD, which recommends that a new Subcommittee be appointed to investigate a merger of GSAFD with LCSH.
  
  Addendum: Linda provides the following information through e-mail after our Committee meeting. "The report was approved and the subcommittee was dismissed. There was a great deal of discussion about the charge for the new subcommittee. As a result of issues raised during that discussion, SAC agreed to form two subcommittees, one to investigate a merger and one to work on guidelines for application of genre headings. The charges will be discussed on the committee list."
• Andrea Kappler mentioned about their in-house documentation of using MARC tag 655 second indicator 7 for genre headings. Margaret commented that MARBI has approved this format.
• Linda also mentioned that it has been 2/3 done in authority subdivision for MARC tags 180, 181… .We need to get the word out to vendors about this new change as we did for subfield v.
  
  
3. Margaret Shen reports on activities of CC:DA
   The major issue this time was "when to create a bibliographic record for serials, monograph, and multi-version. You may access to the Web site for more details. Ruth Bogan, former committee member, suggested to Margaret that we can create a call number list for AV materials.
   
   
4. The future of catalogers
   Mike Tribby brought this topic up and the group had a heavy discussion. This topic was original raised and discussed in Cataloging Children's Materials Committee and was supported by this Committee.
   
   
3. Old Business
   
   
1. 2001 Program report: Joanne Gilmore reporting for Ava Smith
   The Committee sponsors a program in 2001 ALA. The program title is "Practical cataloging : some tips for the totally lost" The program will be held on Saturday, June 16, 2-4 p.m. and is chaired by Ava Smith.
   
   
2. 2002 Program report: Joanne Gilmore
   Title: Cataloging Using the Internet
   Speakers:
   1. Bruce Johnson, Library of Congress, Catalogers Desktop
   2. Dawn Lawson, Forest Press, Web Dewey
   3. Suzanne Burton, Book Systems, Inc., eZcat and other commercial products to help get cataloging from the Web
   4. Laurie MacLeod Bennett, Chestatee Regional Library System, GA; Web sites which are valuable for catalogers such as Internet Movie Database, All music Guide, Amazon, etc.
      
      
4. New Business
   1. Program suggestions for 2003
      Video list as suggested by Margaret; or another interesting topic "Why do we need professional catalogers?" which was agreed by most of the attendees.
      Heeja mentioned about the access to E-journal aggregation through OPAC since some vendors supply the MARC records ready to be downloaded. Andrea talked about Webfeet which provides MARC records through Web sites.
      Mike mentioned that the 4th edition of Cataloging correctly for children is coming out soon, and an updated version of Video 101 : Introduction of cataloging and processing will be in this summer.

Minutes submitted by Wei Jeng-Chu, Indian Trails Public Library District

In attendance:
Joanne Gilmore, Columbus Metro Library, OH
Robert Hall, Concord Free Public Library
Wei Jeng-Chu, Indian Trails Public Library District
Margaret Shen, Cleveland Public Library
Joan Morris, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
J. Randolph Call, Detroit Public Library
Linda Gabel, OCLC, Inc.
Dorothy McKowen, INCOLSA
Heeja Chung, Westchester Library System
Mike Tribby, Quality Book, Inc.
Winton E. Matthews, Jr., Library of Congress
Maxine Sherman, Cuyahoga County Public Library
Richard Watts, San Bernardine County, Calif.
Andrea Kappler, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library