CONFERENCE REPORTS
Jan Mayo, Column Editor
** REPORTS FROM THE **
2003 ALA MIDWINTER CONFERENCE
Philadelphia, PA
ALCTS Media Resources Committee (MRC)
Liaison Report
submitted by Maxine Sherman
Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library
The Media Resources Committee will be sponsoring a program for ALA Annual in Toronto entitled: "Digital Audio/Digital Video: Is Your Library/Media Center Digital Ready?" The tentative date and time is Monday, June 23rd, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. Brian McCafferty reported that three speakers have been confirmed for the program.
MRC is still heavily involved in tactical planning. Two major considerations are: Are we going in the correct direction? Might we switch from a "committee" to an “interest group” if ALCTS decides to support the creation of interest groups? LITA already has several interest groups but this would be new for ALCTS. Interest groups may have liaisons, speakers, etc. The ALCTS Board is discussing allowing the formation of interest groups and is likely to present this as a bylaws amendment on the spring 2003 ballot. MRC plans to do a self-study as part of an ALCTS mandate to review all of its groups on a regular basis. MRC’s current objectives are: present a program at Annual 2003, review and revise the committee’s charge and undertake the self-study review.
The reports from the various liaisons were given. Sueyoung Park-Primiano is the new AMIA liaison.
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Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI)
Liaison Report
submitted by John Attig
Pennsylvania State University
The Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information (MARBI) Committee and the USMARC Advisory Committee met for two sessions during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. The following items will be of interest to OLAC members:
Proposal No. 2003-2: Definition of subfield $u (URI) in Field 538 (Systems Details Note)
This proposal to add subfield $u (URI) to Field 538 is intended to allow the system details note to contain a URL to an external document listing technical information. It is probably most useful for large projects, which have established technical specifications which apply to all of the resources in a large collection.
MARBI approved the addition of subfields $u (URI), $i (Introductory phrase) and $3 (Materials specified) to field 538 in both the bibliographic and holdings formats; the field description will be rewritten to reflect the field’s expanded usage.
Discussion Paper No. 2003-DP02: Coding graphic images in Leader/06
This paper discusses changing the definitions of values g (projected medium) and k (two-dimensional nonprojectable graphic) in Leader/06 and in Field 007/00. It suggests that the distinction between moving and still images is a more important distinction. The basis for the proposal is the need to code digital reproductions of graphics; the current distinction between projected and nonprojected graphics is not easily extended to such materials. In discussion, it became clear that there are several problems with these values: (a) the current definitions do not match current usage – code g is used for videorecordings which are not really projected; (b) the current definitions do not address digital materials; and (c) the full range of elements and features present in graphic materials are not currently addressed in the format.
MARBI decided that there is need for extensive consultation with groups that deal with description of graphic materials, to determine what elements and features need to be brought out and which are most important for high-level record identification. OLAC is one of the groups that will be consulted, along with AMIA, VRA, and others. It was also noted that there are relevant discussions on identification of graphic files going on in the Dublin Core metadata community.
Discussion Paper No. 2003-DP03: Adding Field 024 (Other Standard Identifier) in the Authorities format
This paper discusses adding Field 024 (Other Standard Identifier) to the Authority Format to allow for recording standard identifiers. This is possible because a number of numbering standards are intended to identify expressions of works (to use the terms from the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records). As we move in the direction of catalogs that attempt to organize entities based on the FRBR categories of work, expression, manifestation and item, the role of authority records in representing works and expressions becomes increasingly significant. This makes the existence and use of standard identification numbers important. MARBI agreed that the idea was worth pursuing and asked for a proposal that would (among other things) address the relationship between field 024 in the bibliographic and the authority record.
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Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA)
Liaison Report
submitted by John Attig
Pennsylvania State University
The newly-appointed CC:DA Observer, Sophie Bogdanski of West Virginia University, was unable to attend the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. I was asked to provide a report on CC:DA activities. My report will not deal specifically with the meetings in Philadelphia; the agenda for the meeting, as well as a report of actions taken, is available on the CC:DA Web pages at: <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/>. Instead, I want to talk about the immediate future of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, as well as plans for the more distant future.
AACR, 2002 Revision and the 2003 Amendments Package
The 2002 Revision of AACR2 was published in September 2002. It contains, among other things, major revisions to Chapter 3 (Cartographic Materials) and Chapter 12 (now Continuing Resources). The introduction of integrating resources in the revised Chapter 12 is a very significant change to the rules, and I hope that all catalogers will take a look at the orientation materials such as those prepared by an OLAC CAPC Task Force.
The 2003 Amendments Package, on the other hand, is relatively modest, containing only a few minor modifications to existing rules. The most significant feature of the package will be a long-overdue revision of the index to the rules. The 2003 Amendments should appear in July or August 2003, and will be issued as replacement pages for the loose-leaf text of the 2002 Revision.
One set of revisions that was expected to appear in the 2003 Amendments will not in fact appear. The revisions to Chapter 9, which were to include the elimination of Area 3 (field 256) and further changes to the rules for physical description of electronic resources, were not completed in time. They will likely appear in the 2004 Amendments.
AACR3 — The Future of the Cataloging Rules
The Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR has embarked on an ambitious program leading to a new edition of AACR, which is now being referred to informally, but publicly, as AACR3. JSC’s strategic plan will shortly be posted on the JSC Web site at <http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/> and work towards the new edition has already begun. Among the most significant features are:
- Incorporating FRBR terminology and concepts: JSC is working with a volunteer consultant, Pat Riva of McGill University, to analyze the terminology in AACR2 in the light of some of the terms and concepts in the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). Specifically, the FRBR terms work, expression, manifestation, and item are to be used in AACR in a manner consistent with their definitions in FRBR. The terms expression and manifestation are new to AACR, and the term work is already used appropriately; however, the term item in AACR is not consistent with the FRBR definition, and much discussion has been devoted to this question. A revised proposal will be considered by JSC in April and may be approved. However, the changes in terminology need to be coordinated with other, related revisions and are unlikely to be published for a few more years.
- Revised, conceptual introductions to the rules: JSC has determined that the General Introduction to the code, as well as the Introductions to Parts I and II, need to be significantly expanded to provide a conceptual background for the application of the rules. As a first step, Barbara Tillett of the Library of Congress drafted a statement of the principles underlying the rules. Subsequently, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the British Library prepared drafts of the revised introductions. Further progress has been delayed by the need to incorporate additional sections based on other initiatives (such as an explanation of the use of FRBR terminology described above). JSC will discuss methods for continuing this work at their meeting in April.
- Increasing consistency and reducing repetition in rules in Part I of the rules: In partial response to a recommendation from Tom Delsey and the JSC constituencies to reconsider the organization of Part I, JSC asked ALA to undertake a project to examine the consistency of rules across Part I, propose revisions to eliminate unnecessary inconsistencies, and to move general rules from Chapters 2–12 into Chapter 1. Once this process has been completed, it will be possible to determine (a) the extent of the special rules in Chapters 2–12, and (b) the exact types of material to which those special rules apply. In Philadelphia, CC:DA approved proposed revisions relating to Areas 2 (Edition) and 3 (Material-specific details); these proposals will be considered by JSC in April. Meanwhile, the CC:DA Task Force will be working on Areas 4 (Publication, distribution, etc.), 5 (Physical description) and 6 (Series). It will probably take another year or two before proposals for all of the areas have been drafted and approved, and I expect that publication of the changes will not take place until all of the revisions have been approved.
- Reconceptualizing the scope of Chapter 9 (Electronic Resources): In its discussions on revising Chapter 9, ALA suggested that the scope of the chapter has become part of the problem, that limiting the scope to a smaller class of materials (e.g., computer programs, games, online services) and providing rules to describe the electronic carrier aspects of digital versions in the chapter appropriate to those types of resources (i.e., digital maps in Chapter 3, digital sound recordings in Chapter 6). ALA and the British Library were asked to form a joint working group to examine this question and to prepare revision proposals. That Task Force was just formed and presented a preliminary report in Philadelphia; it hopes to have a final report for the June ALA meeting in Toronto, although the issues may be too complex to be solved quickly.
- Thorough revision of Chapter 21: Chapter 21 was the object of a number of recommendations from Tom Delsey in his Logical Analysis of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. JSC began with one specific recommendation, to reconsider the "Rule of Three" which artificially limits the number of added entries that a cataloger is instructed to make. In addition, JSC would like to restate the rules for choice of entry in terms of the relationships among entities that are listed in the Functional Requirements. JSC has prepared terms of reference and is looking for a consultant to do this work.
- Creating a new Part III on authority records: The Library of Congress has proposed that the current Chapters 22–25 on form of heading become the core of a new Part III of AACR, which would contain explicit instruction on creating authority records and would include rules for form of heading, for providing references from variant forms and related headings, and for providing other authority record content (e.g., numeric identifiers, notes). In a related activity, JSC’s Format Variation Working Group has prepared revisions to Chapter 25 (Uniform titles) which would include instruction for creating identifiers for not only works, but also for expressions and manifestations — again providing support for concepts from the Functional Requirements.
All of these initiatives add up to a significant revision of AACR2. While work on most of them is already underway, the various tasks are closely interrelated and therefore require considerable coordination. Although plans call for publication of the new edition by the end of 2005, this may be overly ambitious. In any case, it will be fascinating to watch the rule revision process over the next few years. These reports in the OLAC Newsletter should continue to give you a sense of how things are progressing.
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Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)
Cataloging and Documentation Committee
Liaison Report
submitted by Sueyoung Park-Primiano
New York University Libraries
AMIA’s twelfth annual conference in Boston in November 2002 was a huge success. The comprehensive series of sessions and workshops put together by the Digital Issues Task Force (DITF) brought more attendance and broader participation from members of libraries and art museums.
Given the success of the conference in Boston and the ongoing importance of digital issues, the merging of the DITF and AMIA’s Digital Archives Interest Group to become the Digital Initiatives Committee (DIC) was proposed. An election was held in January 2003, which resulted in establishing DIC as a new Committee of the Membership. The elected committee co-chairs are Linda Tadic and Jim Lindner.
The new Committee’s mission is as follows:
The Digital Initiatives Committee is a mechanism for identifying key issues, contributing expertise, and implementing special projects that lead to recommended practices for digital concerns that impact the archival moving image and audio field. It works closely with the AMIA Preservation, Access, Cataloging and Documentation, and Education Committees, and with other relevant AMIA committees and groups to achieve these goals. The Digital Initiatives Committee shall inform the AMIA membership of developments in digital technology, preservation, access, and metadata through publications, projects, workshops, conference sessions, and recommended practices. It will represent its constituents’ concerns to related organizations through active liaison relationships.
Changes are afoot for the Cataloging and Documentation Committee (C&D) as well. Abigail Leab Martin has been elected the new Chair to succeed Jane Johnson. Johnson served as Chair for two of the most productive terms for the Committee. She established the Standards Review Subcommitee, and oversaw the revision of AMIM, the publication of the AMIA Compendium of Moving Image Cataloging Practice, and the development of the Moving Image Gateway project (now known as the Moving Image Collections or MIC).
Under the new Chair’s leadership, the Standards Review Subcommittee will continue its work, and the Website Subcommittee will be reshaping the C&D site <http://www.amianet.org/committees/CoM/Cataloging/cataloging.html> in coordination with MIC, particularly in the areas of education and outreach. Comments or suggestions are welcome.
A motion was put forward at the conference concerning the name of the C&D Committee. It was agreed by Committee members that the Moving Image Material Culture Interest Group was a more appropriate forum for addressing issues relating to documentation, especially since its members were quite interested in taking on those issues and it had been several years since any work on or extended discussion about documentation was carried out by the C&D Committee. With that in mind, it was proposed that the Committee be renamed the Cataloging Committee. Those present agreed that this change would better reflect both the activities and the focus of the Committee.
As mentioned before, the Moving Image Gateway (MIG) has been rechristened Moving Image Collections (MIC [pronounced "MIKE"]). This Library of Congress-AMIA collaborative project is moving forward with great momentum and 2003 promises to be an exciting and productive year for development.
MIC is a union catalog and portal for discovery of moving image resources for education and research, which will facilitate collaborative cataloging, preservation, programming, and digitization activities. In addition to the union catalog, it will include a cataloging facility, an education/outreach space, and an international directory of moving image repositories. The MIC Archive Directory pre-test phase has concluded and evaluation is in progress.
The MIC Project website is now up and running at <http://gondolin.rutgers.edu/MIC/>. This site provides alerts on new developments and documents past, current, and future work on the project. Recent additions to the website include MIC Development Milestones, MIC Technologies Overview and the MIC Union Catalog Draft Registry. As the actual MIC portal is developed, it will be available for ongoing review and will be accessible from the MIC project website. Georgia Tech, the portal designers, will host the MIC site.
Five humanities alpha implementer sites have been added to the original seven science alpha sites. These institutions have significant moving image collections in both analog and digital format and include the Library of Congress, Cable News Network (CNN), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, National Geographic Television, National Library of Medicine, Northeast Historic Film, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Pacific Film Archive, the Peabody Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Prelinger Collection at the Internet Archive, ResearchChannel, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wisconsin Center for Film and Video Research.
The Library of Congress will host the Gateway. Developer sites are Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Washington. For more information, please contact Jane Johnson <jdj@ucla.edu>.
For more information on the conference, Committee projects, or general questions relating to AMIA, please feel free to contact me by email <syp3@nyu.edu> and/or visit the AMIA website <http://www.amianet.org/>.
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Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG)
Liaison Report
submitted by Robert Freeborn
Pennsylvania State University
- Current Executive Board members
Chair: Ruthann Boles McTyre (University of Iowa)
Past Chair: Jean Harden (University of North Texas)
Treasurer: Ruth A. Inman (Kennedy-King College Library)
Secretary/Newsletter Editor: Stephen Luttman (University of Northern Colorado)
Continuing Education Coordinator: Marty Jenkins (Wright State University)
OCLC Liaison: Jay Weitz
- 2003 Annual Meeting
The MOUG annual meeting will be held Feb. 11-12, 2003 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin, Texas. Events of interest will include:
- A plenary session entitled "The Truth about CAT(aloger)s and DOG(ed Reference Librarian)s - Generating Symbiosis in the Relationship Between Public and Technical Services" by Stephen Luttmann and Kay Lowell (University of Northern Colorado), Jean Harden and Donna Arnold (University of North Texas), and Margaret Kaus (University of Tennessee, Knoxville).
- A breakout session containing two presentations: "MARS Authority Control" by Mickey Koth (Yale University); and "Cataloging Websites" by Robert Freeborn (Penn State University).
- An "Ask MOUG" session on technical services.
- NACO-Music Project working session.
For further information on MOUG conferences and other activities, please check out <http://www.musicoclcusers.org/>.
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Last updated: June 23, 2004
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