The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (B.E.A.T.) was formed in Dec 1992, and was charged with the implementation of various initiatives to improve the tools, content, and access to bibliographic information. Operations commenced formally with the inaugural meeting, chaired by John Byrum, chief of the Library's Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, on February 2, 1993.
Membership represents the core cataloging divisions, the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS), Acquisitions, and also has members or representatives from Information Technology Services (ITS), Cataloging in Publication (CIP), and Constituent Services, and (ex-officio) the Edward Lowe Foundation (ELF). All of the Library's staff on the B.E.A.T. Team worked on their general B.E.A.T. assignments in addition to their regular duties. Other work, particularly that related to data creation and data entry, was largely, though not exclusively, performed on overtime.
Regular B.E.A.T. meetings were held approximately twice each month beginning in February 1993, and continue at present. During the year B.E.A.T. made presentations to LC management and to the Cataloging Council to report on its plans and progress, and was represented on the Business Research Center's management group by John Byrum and Robert August.
The major areas of activity undertaken by B.E.A.T. in 1993 were in the "Tools" area; that is, investigating and implementing new ways of finding information faster and easier. The B.E.A.T. initiatives in 1993 fell into three categories, dealing with enriching the content of bibliographic records by adding more search words to them to enable broader access to their contents; automating classification in order to provide better links between LC's authorized terminology, unstructured terms, terms found in the classification schemes, enhancing the capability to use classification as a retrieval tool; and, enhancing Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) by incorporating in it terms identified in the course of B.E.A.T. and other Business Center activity, as well as additional business-related terms identified as part of the B.E.A.T. project on LCSH itself. Accordingly, B.E.A.T. formed subcommittees to deal with each of these research initiatives.
Under the direction of Cynthia Johanson, Assistant Chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, a group was assembled to experiment using manual techniques to add tables of contents to bibliographic records. The titles used were selected from a core list Best Business Books as identified by the LC Business Reference Team. A work flow and data entry routine for monographs was established, and the group input data for 200 titles, with more still to be produced, and these enhanced MARC records in turn have been distributed worldwide by the Library's Cataloging Distribution Service. The Business and Economics Cataloging Team and the Business Research Team are currently exploring the possibility of creating summary contents notes for serial titles on the core list.
The work of this subcommittee is ongoing, but its operations are expected to merge shortly into those of a parallel experiment in the automated mode.
Chaired by Richard Thaxter, Coordinator of Automated Operations in the Special Materials Cataloging Division, this subgroup is experimenting with techniques to add table of contents data to MARC bibliographic records using automated methods such as scanning. This group has converted only about 25 records thus far, but is expected to take a lead role in table of contents augmentation during 1994 as a prototype workflow evolves. In addition the subgroup has been experimenting with creation of editing and data exchange techniques that should make the process more efficient. Equipment, including software, scanner, and computer is expected to be in place by the start of 1994.
The work of this subgroup is related to another Library of Congress initiative, The Electronic CIP Research Project. Because of the desirability of relating the work of these two groups, B.E.A.T. formed a subgroup of the table of contents group, chaired by John Celli, Chief of the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Division to insure close coordination between the two efforts. CIP is engaged in a research project to acquire CIP data, and ultimately publications, in machine-readable form. The B.E.A.T. plan is to build on the machine acquisition of data by CIP and incorporate that data's table of contents entries into bibliographic records using automated methods. To date, sample texts have been successfully transmitted between selected publishers and the CIP division. In the next phase, B.E.A.T. will work on moving data into the bibliographic record from the CIP receipt using electronic means, and a path for this future R&D is emerging.
Some Benefits
The initiatives on More Search Words for Business also produced some other results besides the addition of tables of contents to the first set of records. It helped the LC Business Reference and Business and Economics Cataloging Teams find ways to work together and to expand their scope of activities -- the Business Cataloging Team is now identifying new titles of interest in business, and the table of contents initiative will continue to extract data from the materials identified; the Business Research team also benefits from the flagging of new important works by specialists on the cataloging team.
Basic editorial guidelines have been derived based on work in the manual mode, and these will serve well as the manual operation is folded into an automated one. Staff has gained needed familiarity with these conventions.
This B.E.A.T. initiative also provided a mechanism for CIP and the core division functions to come together in an area of research -- electronic texts -- that the Library considers to be very important.
The Project leader for this effort was Rebecca Guenther of the Library's Network Development and MARC Standards Office.
B.E.A.T. aimed to contribute to the effort to create better links between LC's authorized terminology, unstructured terms, and terms found in the classification system. A subgroup was established and an action plan for the project -- identifying training needs, finding equipment and space, creating a mechanism for establishing required editing/input conventions, and finding a way to permit more staff access to the database, inputting and verifying the data -- was established and implemented.
The group was to convert to machine-readable form selected classification schedules: J, P (part), QA, T, and Z, and to date, conversion of the T (Technology) schedule, and of subclasses P (Philology, Linguistics) and QA (Mathematics, including Computer Science) are entirely completed; Z (Bibliography, Library Science) is nearly complete, with completion expected by Dec. 1993; conversion of newly revised J (Political science) is in process. Its completion depends on the progress of staff who are revising the existing schedule in accordance with the plan of the Business and Economics Cataloging Team to bring it up to date (see below).
Some Benefits
The opportunity to train in and learn the Minaret database program provided job enrichment for Classification Editorial Team (CLED) staff that also involved PC use, and provided the vehicle for them to learn and become comfortable with the classification format. The importance of the development of this in-house LC resource for further work and peer support in the future must be stressed, as it means CLED staff can now take on further maintenance work for all the schedules that have been converted. Expertise developed in US MARC classification format and inputting has enabled the CLED staff to work on special projects to improve other converted schedules, including the H-HJ (Social Sciences: Economics) schedule. A printout of index terms associated with the H schedule has been provided to the Business reference staff. This includes terms associated with US MARC classification records and their related classification numbers providing them with alternative subject access for reference purposes. The project also enabled the Business and Economics Cataloging Team to undertake a much-needed revision of the "J" schedule prior to conversion. Several subclasses of J have already been revised.
Project Leader: Gabe Horchler, Team Leader, Business and Economics Cataloging Team, Social Sciences Division.
The Team identified several thousand business and entrepreneurial-related subject terms found in standard thesauri, but which are not represented in LCSH, and is now addressing the methods by which these terms can be integrated into LCSH.
In a second initiative, a workflow has also been established whereby the team identifies new titles of importance as they are received for cataloging and informs the Business Reference staff, and also forwards data to the table of contents group for incorporation into the MARC record.
The Team, with special efforts by Gabe Horchler particularly, has undertaken a very important revision of the J schedule. Long overdue, the prospect of converting the schedule to machine-readable form provided the impetus for B.E.A.T. to seek and receive permission from LC management to revise the schedule. The result will be a machine-readable and accessible schedule that reflects modern practice and terminology. The revision is expected to be completed by the end of 1993, with possible proofing to carry over into early 1994.
The Business research Team and the B&E cataloging Team met and discussed mechanisms for evaluating terminology and exchange of information. It is clear that the two teams will work together more as ways are found to evaluate the utility of the data that is now being created.
Some Benefits
The team received a long-desired CD-ROM reader and access to the ELS databases, thanks to the purchase of equipment by the Library of Congress Business Research Fund. This enables the Business and Economics Cataloging Team to obtain the up-to-date business information that their work demands, and provides local tools and equipment for them to expand their scope of coverage and information access. It also provides team members with opportunities to use equipment not generally available to cataloging staff in LC, and helps better prepare them to make better, more efficient use of new technology and equipment that is being introduced in the Directorate.
The opportunity to revise the J schedule was also fortuitous, as the LC Law Classification specialist is presently involved with extensive revisions of JX and conversion to machine-readable form portions of classification dealing with law with expressed needs of the Law Library community. There is an intimate relationship between these efforts; an ability to rethink class J has helped make this a consistent effort.
The effort to forward data concerning new business books of importance has institutional benefit on several levels; it provides LC staff with information in an way that reduces duplication of effort and overhead; it helps focus attention on broader issues than cataloging, and it gets various groups in B.E.A.T. working together, rather than conducting exclusively stand-alone R&D efforts.
This group, consisting of John Byrum, Robert August, and the chairs of the various B.E.A.T. subgroups met as necessary to track progress, share information, identify problems, monitor funding and expenses, and to formulate plans and revised strategies where necessary. It also met, and will meet again shortly, to finalize the B.E.A.T. agenda for 1994.
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