University of Arkansas Libraries

Transcription

1 University of Arkansas Libraries March 6, Discussion of p.1-12 of On the Record Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Please read this with thought of how these may impact cataloging and acquisitions and what should we present to our supervisors and/or The Cataloging Policies and Practices Committee. The URL is: Before beginning our discussion of the report, Deb Kulczak report on a meeting at MLA which addressed the report s significance. Two basic statements were that the report will be reviewed and recommendations will be adopted or rejected and the work on RDA has continued although one of the recommendations is to suspend work on this new cataloging standard. With this in mind, the catalogers began to discuss the introductory sections of the report. The introductory statements seemed to be centered around the rationale used by the LC Working Group for the recommendations the group is making and on the stated purpose of the report. Some noted statements in the report: The Working Group envisions a future for the bibliographic control that will be collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based. p.1 The Working Group intends to project a future path consistent with the goals of bibliographic control: to facilitate discovery, management, identification and access of and to library materials and other information products. And Libraries must minimize where possible the costs of bibliographic control p.1 A major point of the Working Group is that the Library of Congress is not a national library and has never received funding to perform the functions of a national library. It is also expected that funding will diminish and that the eminent retirement of staff will make it impossible for the Library of Congress to continue providing the services (catalog records, leadership in the area of standards: MARC21, access tools: LCC, LCSH, METS) which have been supporting American libraries. The Working Group

2 also notes the interaction between electronic environments, such as online library catalogs, Amazon, WorldCat, Google, etc. and state that it is important that connections can be made between these environments. Taking all these factors into consideration, the conclusion is that the role of the Library of Congress must change. After some discussion of these introductory statements, the catalogers agreed that this report will most likely have an impact on the profession of cataloging and that we should follow up on LC s decisions on the recommendations in the report. We further agreed that a summary of the report and it most significant points would be written for the Library Policies and Practices Review Committee and Judy Ganson. 2. Other issues: Fred asked about the 655 field and its usefulness. The 655 MARC21 field is reserved for genre headings. At the time, the Library set up InfoLinks, the online library catalog, the 655 field was not yet used. The decision was to index the 655 field in the Word Index. Fred also asked for information about the 690 local subject field and the collection headings that have been developed to search and retrieve a menu of titles in a particular. The list of collection headings used by Mullins Library catalogers is at: March 13, Continue discussion of the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. p section titles Increase the Efficiency of Bibliographic Production and Maintenance. The catalogers were very interested in the recommendations made by the Working Group on bibliographic production and maintenance. Points which we noted were recommendations to eliminate redundancies (section 1.1) by accepting more data from other agencies in the supply chain of publishers, vendors, Amazon, distribution sources for sound recordings, motion pictures, etc., and non-u.s. libraries. It is recommended that LC work on format guidelines for CIP. The ONIX (Online Information Exchange) Program was noted. Recommendations also stated that pricing for records should be reevaluated for LC products. Catalogers were also intrigued by recommendation 1.1.5: Develop Evidence about Discovery Tools to Guide Decision Makers which states that all should: Make use of existing, and gather additional, evidence on user behavior to establish empirically the correlation between user behavior and the content of bibliographic records. It was noted that this may be an area the University of Arkansas catalogers could develop research.

3 The section 1.2 Increase Distribution of Responsibility for Bibliographic Record Production and Maintenance was also of great interest. The national programs: PCC and its component programs, BIBCO, NACO, SACO, and CONSER are listed as avenues for increasing the participation of libraries in the production and maintenance of bibliographic records (see p.16-18). The bulk of the recommendations in this section are directed to LC for consideration. However one set of recommendations is directed to the PCC program. Catalogers here were interested in two of these: PCC: Assess barriers and incentives to participation by more libraries, PCC: Actively recruit new participants. The catalogers agreed to watch for developments and changes in the requirements and restrictions of these programs with the purpose of determining if we may participate on a national level. It was noted that Deb had recently reviewed the NACO program and we will ask her to remind us of her information. Because OCLC also has restrictions on upgrading master records, we also agreed to watch for developments or changes at OCLC. The final section 1.3, Collaborate on Authority Record Creation and Maintenance emphases the importance of name authority work and subject analysis and the truly intellectual nature of creating these controlled headings. Recommendations include: Increase collaboration on authority data, increase re-use of assigned authoritative headings, and internationalize authority files. Whether the measures recommended are feasible remains to be seen. 2. Other issues: No new issues were introduced. The catalogers agreed to meet March 20 and discuss the section 2 Enhance Access to Rare, Unique, and Other Special Hidden Materials, p March 20, Review the second section, p of the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Section 2 is titled Enhance Access to Rare, Unique and Other Special Hidden Materials. There were no controversial recommendations in this section. Catalogers did note that the possible issues would be the allocation of resources to perform cataloging projects as well as the level of cataloging for such collections. Certainly, the University of Arkansas Libraries has many unique and hidden collections and cataloging would increase the access to those collections. Mikey mentioned that we own unique Arkansas maps which are waiting for original cataloging. This section also raises the possibility that guidelines and standards will change.

4 2. Approve Feb. meeting minutes, if I get them written. The February minutes were approved with minor corrections to be made. March 27, Review section 3, p of the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. The interpretation of section three was a challenge. Although the working group stated that the MARC Format needed changes, there seemed to be no definite proposal. The concept may be to design a system which can accommodate various metadata schemes. The suggestion was made that the catalogers revisit this section and perhaps consult Lora and/or Beth. The sections on evolving standards was clearer; the Working Group recommends that the work on FRBR be completed and fully implemented and that RDA development be placed on hold until FRBR is operational. The Group also made the point that standard creation and/or development should be timelier. 2. Plan for dept meeting? Cheryl would like to begin planning for a department meeting; she is aiming to have at least two meeting per year. Possible topics are: Report on the December 2007 diary studies Strategic Library Goals Gradual cleaning/clearing of the department space. [Ex. Consider removing the rarely used typewriter and review the catrf collection.] 3. Other issues? Mikey asked us to consider nominating staff for the Library Staff Awards. Elaine report the UMI now allows the authors of theses and dissertations to elect to suppress the online full-text document for 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years. Luti had reported this as a service problem. The consensus of the catalogers was to ask if the Graduate School would direct students to allow access to the online full-text copy. ACTION TAKEN: Elaine consulted the Graduate School and Director Judy Ganson. The answer was that we could not prevent the students from suppressing the online full-text copy. The decision was that a note would be added to the bib records of titles which are not available. Elaine also reported that copies of the manuscripts in the exploded box and the lost box have been made and she is working with UMI and the Graduate School to make these available online.

5 Update: Mikey and Deb had both indicated interest in the symposium: The Future of Cataloging: A PALINET Symposium held in Philadelphia. I asked Judy her opinion on sending one or two catalogers to it; she asked me to check and see if AMIGOS would be presenting it in future. I sent Chris Brown an today to ask. RESPONSE: Laura Kimberly, the Associate Director and Manager of Continuing Education Services at Amigos Library Services sent an stating that planning for a similar symposium is taking place at Amigos and asking for our input on location and content. Cheryl sent the responses of the catalogers to her questions. Some or all of us will be interested in attending such a program when it is available.