LC Cataloging Newsline

Online Newsletter of the Cataloging Directorate, Library of Congress

Volume 6, No. 14, ISSN 1066-8829, December 1998
Contents

Program for Cooperative Cataloging - The Year in Review
LCCN Suffix/Alphabetic Identifier and Revision Date Cessation
Recent Developments of the Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program
ISO 632-2: An International Standard for Language Codes

Program for Cooperative Cataloging - The Year in Review

The first Policy Committee meeting chaired by Brian Schottlaender was held on Nov. 13-14, 1997, at the Library of Congress. Schottlaender presented an overview of the consolidated organizational structure that includes a five-member Steering Committee and a nineteen-member Policy Committee (PoCo). Included among the nineteen are the five members of the Steering Committee, three standing committee chairs, BIBCO and CONSER Coordinators, the chair-elect (Sally Sinn), and the Secretariat representative from the Library of Congress.

The Policy Committee members developed the strategic plan that charts the program's course from 1998 to 2002. The plan has five goals, covering bibliographic and authority records, standards, leadership, membership, and governance and operations.

In order to meet the strategic plan's goals, a tactical plan organized by goal, date, and assignment was developed. A document outlining the allocation and expenditure of funds was distributed to the Steering Committee and PoCo members. A summary version of this first PCC funding document was posted to the PCC home page so that the financial responsibilities of participating member institutions and a description of the costs covered by the PCC would be available to all.

Schottlaender petitioned the ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section for formal representation for the PCC on the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA). The petition was accepted and the PCC joined other library organizations in the United States in becoming a non-voting member of the CC:DA. Joan Schuitema, chair of the PCC's Standing Committee on Standards, is serving as PCC representative to CC:DA through 1999.

In the interest of protecting the PCC name and its use by other organizations and businesses, a policy document was written governing the use of the PCC name in sponsorship and advertising, based on several models of private and public institutions.

Milestones

As of Oct. 1, 1998, there were 339 libraries participating in the NACO Program, including those in thirteen funnel projects. There were thirty BIBCO libraries with three more scheduled to join by the end of calendar year 1998. There were eighty-nine libraries participating in the SACO Program, eighteen of which are SACO only while the others also participate in either CONSER, NACO, and/or BIBCO. There were thirty-three CONSER participants.

Fiscal year 1998 saw an increase in contributions of new records of name, series, and subject authorities. NACO participants contributed 161,446 new name authority records (NARs) to the national authority file and 9,233 series authority records (SARs), in addition to changing 39,212 existing NARs and SARs. SACO enriched Library of Congress Subject Headings with 2,159 new headings and Library of Congress Classification with 883 new classification numbers. In support of these SACO contributions, the Cooperative Cataloging Team initiated 6,495 changes to bibliographic records in the LC database. The BIBCO libraries contributed 37,559 bibliographic records, an increase of twenty-six percent over fiscal year 1997.

The CONSER database of serial records totaled 856,681 in fiscal year 1998. The rate of growth in maintenance transactions continued to be strong. It was partially supported by new CONSER enhance members. The decline in the rate of growth of new records continued. New record authentications now represent forty-one percent of the total transactions on the CONSER database.

"Cataloging Now!" institutes were held July 10, 1998, in Anaheim, Calif., Sept. 18, 1998, in Worcester, Mass., and Oct. 22, 1998, in Dallas, Tex. The objective of the workshops is to bring together cataloging librarians, catalog department and technical services administrators, as well as public service librarians in a facilitated discussion of the need for streamlining cataloging processes and how the core record can be employed as an option. ALCTS and the PCC are co-sponsoring these institutes.

Training initiatives

The Asian Materials Cataloging Seminar held Mar. 30-31, 1998, at the Library of Congress was attended by 135 technical services librarians from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Taiwan.

The first law NACO training course was presented by the Cooperative Cataloging Team at LC, July 15-18, 1998.

Two new NACO funnel projects were added: Arabic Funnel Project and the On-Line Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC) Funnel Project.

Series institutes were held on Apr. 29-May 1, 1998, and Sept. 23-25, 1998, at the Library of Congress. Additional series training was held in Chicago for the University of Chicago and Cooperative Computer Services targeting regional PCC participants.

Three workshops in support of SACO, the Subject Authority Cooperative Program component of the PCC, were held on June 25, 1998. Two of the workshops focused on specialized areas in formulating new headings: geographic names and historic events and names of languages and related literature headings.

Also in conjunction with the ALA Annual Conference, there was a one-day workshop designed to develop facilitation skills for PCC NACO/BIBCO trainers.

Standing and Operations Committees

The Standing Committee on Standards, chaired by Joan Schuitema, issued a standards document on the use of classification numbers in BIBCO full and core-level records. Audiovisual materials, computer files, moving image materials, and graphic materials core-level record standards were presented, approved, and posted on the PCC home page, alongside the core record standards for other formats.

In the area of automation, problems related to the loading of machine-generated preliminary records were investigated. Under the leadership of Michael Kaplan, chair of the Standing Committee on Automation, a special task group was established to investigate and test batch-loading issues involved in real-time copy/paste from local systems to the utilities.

The Standing Committee on Training, chaired by Joan Swanekamp, devoted much of its time during the year to writing and reviewing the script for the Cataloging Now! institutes, designed to promote the values of the PCC and the use of the core-level record cataloging standard.

The first BIBCO Operations Committee was formed, leading to the inaugural joint BIBCO and CONSER Operations Committees meeting at the Library of Congress, May 7-8. Joint sessions were held at the opening and concluding meetings, which provided the opportunity for the PCC Operations Committees to coordinate their efforts. During the joint closing session, members of both committees reviewed ways of accomplishing some of the tasks included in the PCC Tactical Plan and began crafting a PCC values statement for incorporation into the PCC Strategic Plan. Subsequently, the PCC Values Statement was completed and approved.


LCCN Suffix/Alphabetic Identifier and Revision Date Cessation

In preparation for the restructuring of the Library of Congress Control Number to accommodate the century change, the Library of Congress will discontinue use of the LCCN Suffix/Alphabetic Identifier and Revision Date as of Jan. 1, 1999. (These data occur at the end of the 001 and 010 fields in records issued by the Library). No new cataloging records created after Jan. 1, 1999, will contain suffix or revision date in 001 or 010 fields. Updates to previously existing records may continue to contain suffix and/or revision date. No concerted effort to remove these data from updates will occur until the Library of Congress moves to its new integrated library system during 1999.

The LCCN Suffix/Alphabetic Identifier was originally designed to provide information related to the distribution of card copy by LC. A complete list of the Suffix/Alphabetic Identifiers can be found in the field 010 description in USMARC Format for Bibliographic Data.

Records that are candidates for the "Annotated Card" or juvenile works program will no longer contain the 'AC' LCCN suffix, but will instead contain the code, 'lcac', in field 042.

The LCCN Revision Date was used to specify the latest date and number of times a cataloging record underwent a significant change. It was used, among other things, to distinguish one version of a card from another. In LC cataloging records, field 005 contains the date and time of the latest version of the record. Currently all updates to LC records are redistributed through the MARC distribution services.

Questions or comments on the above may be sent to the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-4305; email: [email protected]


Recent Developments of the Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program

The Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program (SCCTP) is a cooperative endeavor to provide standardized training materials and train experienced serials catalogers to serve as workshop leaders. Plans for the SCCTP are developing on several fronts. LC's Cataloging Distribution Service has agreed to make available for purchase course materials that are based on CONSER documentation. Train-the-trainer sessions are being developed and sponsors for the training workshops are volunteering to support the training effort.

The first course will focus on the basics of serials cataloging for publications in print and electronic formats. Cameron Campbell, University of Chicago, is using the CONSER core record as the basis for developing the course. It is a two-day course, but materials will indicate what can be omitted or expanded for longer or shorter sessions. Course materials will be available in June.

In seeking experienced serials catalogers to serve as trainers, CONSER issued a call for trainers on library discussion lists in mid-November requesting volunteers with experience in serials cataloging and training. The deadline for applications is Feb. 15. Two train-the-trainer sessions will be held in June 1999, one in conjunction with NASIG in Pittsburgh, the other in conjunction with ALA in New Orleans. There will be a maximum of twenty-five trainees at each session. The course will be a two-day course. To volunteer, contact Jean Hirons ([email protected]).

During the ALA Midwinter Meeting on Friday, Jan. 29, 7:00-9:00 pm, Sally Sinn, chair of the PCC, and Jean Hirons, CONSER coordinator, will lead a session to provide information about current developments of the program. The program and its goals will be discussed and ideas will be solicited from the participants. The session is aimed at all potential stakeholders library administrators, catalogers, trainers, potential training providers, etc. For more information, contact Jean Hirons by email ([email protected]).


ISO 632-2: An International Standard for Language Codes

After nine years of development, ISO 639-2: Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages: Alpha-3 Codes, developed by the TC37/SC2-TC46/SC4 Joint Working Group (JWG) of the International Organisation for Standardisation has been approved. Work on the standard, a list of three-character language codes, was initiated in 1989 because of the inadequacy of the ISO two-character code list (Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages Alpha-2 Code) to represent a sufficient number of languages for bibliographic and terminology needs. The newly approved list is based on the USMARC Code List for Languages and attempts to resolve differences between bibliographic users and users interested in terminology applications. Over the years several committee drafts and draft international standards were submitted and balloted. The U.S. provided the convener of the ISO JWG, John Byrum, chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, with technical assistance from Rebecca Guenther, Network Development and MARC Standards Office, and Milicent Wewerka, Cataloging Policy and Support Office.

Early in the effort the developers agreed to attempt to make the codes in ISO 639-2 consistent with those in ISO 639-1, a 2-character code list used for terminological purposes. However, in the development of the standard there was considerable difficulty over the choice of codes, since the bibliographic community had a well-established list (based on the MARC 21 language code list) that was not always compatible with ISO 639-1. As a necessary compromise between the terminology community and the bibliographic community, the joint working group agreed to standardize two sets of codes, one for bibliographic applications (ISO 639-2/B) and one for terminological applications (ISO 639-2/T). The two sets are different only in twenty-three of the 464 codes.

With the final publication of ISO 639-2, both the U.S. national standard Z39.52 (Codes for the Representation of Languages for Information Interchange) and the USMARC Code List for Languages will now be revised for consistency with the international standard. Twenty-five MARC 21 language codes for infrequently used languages will be changed, thirty-three new language codes will be added, and one will be made obsolete. These changes will be introduced gradually beginning next summer. In the future, it is expected that the three standards will remain compatible. The Library of Congress has been designated the registration authority for ISO 639-2; after initial publication of the ISO list, future development of the list will be processed and reviewed by LC with guidance from the ISO Joint Advisory Committee (ISO 639/RA-JAC).


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