BIBCO-At-Large Meeting

Summary report

ALA Annual Conference, Chicago, Ill. July 9th, 2000

Ruta Penkiunas (LC, BIBCO Coordinator) and Marjorie Bloss (CRL, Chair of PCC) welcomed the group.

Links across formats (continuing resources vs. continuing and finite resources)

David Van Hoy (MIT) reported that the discussion paper, "Linking serial and monograph bibliographic records by use of MARC 765-787 linking fields" had been presented at CONSER- At-Large earlier that morning. At that meeting quite a few changes were suggested, including those needed to accommodate RLG BIBCO participants. With that caveat, Van Hoy outlined a few issues contained on the draft paper which he and Adam Schiff (U. Washington) had undertaken following the discussion held at the joint BIBCO/CONSER Operations Committee meetings in May at LC. The text of the draft will continue to be available and will be updated to reflect changes as appropriate. Comments, etc. may be sent to David Van Hoy or Adam Schiff.

Little discussion was generated by the paper. It appears that for many BIBCO participants the imminent impact of the changes to take place as a result of the revision of AACR2 Chapter 12 and the impact of MARBI's impending approval of the new code "i" (for integrating resources) has yet to be fully understood and digested. Joan Schuitema, Chair of the PCC's Standing Committee on Standards, remarked that this discussion proved the adage "of putting the cart before the horse" and that this topic should be revisited again once BIBCO members have evaluated how workflows will be affected by the implementation of the coming changes to Chapter 12 of AACR2, especially with regard to integrating resources. She urged BIBCO members to do this sooner rather than later. Karen Calhoun, Chair of the PCC's Standing Committee on Automation, asked if the benefits derived by library end users in exchange for the expenditure of time on performing this task have been identified and described; if not, she suggested that library administrators might be concerned about the cost-effectiveness of this venture.

Maintenance issues (BFM as a required parameter of the BIBCO Program?)

Ana Cristán (LC) announced and proceeded to read through a draft of BIBCO Program Parameters for membership in the program. This parameters document is the first attempt to compile into a single listing all the various requirements of BIBCO participation; however, it did contain one item which had not previously been discussed. Unlike the parameters of both the CONSER and NACO components which contain maintenance clauses, the BIBCO program has shied away from a maintenance requirement especially as this has always been a contentious issue in the NACO program.

As presented in the draft parameters document, the bibliographic file maintenance (BFM) clause would have required members to report the need for BFM to other Program members as appropriate whenever a change was made to an extant authority record (name or subject) which would affect access point on records carrying the 042 pcc designation. Attendees at the meeting vigorously disagreed with that requirement. Participants noted that the additional burdens of increased charges for searching in order to be able to identify all BIBCO participants holding a given item in OCLC and that in addition the time needed in reporting records for BFM made this a prohibitively costly expectation. The BFM parameter as stated was soundly rejected as a parameter for membership in BIBCO. Calhoun suggested that BIBCO should be encouraging the utilities to routinely run the authority file against the bibliographic file to programatically update headings. At that point Robert Bremer, (OCLC) stated that recent programming breakthroughs at OCLC may facilitate the programatic updating of bibliographic records when changes are made to authority headings.

ACTION: The parameters document will be redrafted with language emphasizing that institutional accountability for the quality and maintenance of records contributed to the program is highly desirable. The final draft will be forwarded to the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo), who meet in November and in due course will be added to the complement of BIBCO documentation on the web. The new draft is now available for comment. BIBCO participants may send comments on the draft to Ana Cristán.

Update: Glen Patton, OCLC, issued an announcement to the PCClist (July 14, 2000) which announced that "OCLC WorldCat Management and Quality Control staff have worked with the staff at the OCLC/WLN Office to supply the Quality Control Section a weekly list of changed 1XX fields on all name and subject authority file records. This list will enable OCLC staff to take a more pro-active approach to updating headings in the WorldCat database. NACO libraries are still encouraged to notify OCLC QC staff of new authority records which are in conflict with existing WorldCat headings. However, they can discontinue reporting changes made to the 1XX fields on existing authority file records."

The PCC, and in particular the BIBCO Program, expresses a sincere appreciation to OCLC for the support of all PCC cooperative efforts and especially for facilitating this enhancement which will assure that BIBCO Program records maintain authorized access points.

Survey of Program records.

The issue of quality of BIBCO records has been raised often in recent PCC meetings. A consensus at the May OpCo meeting was to develop and carry out a survey to examine the quality of Program records. Cristán stated that LC would not be volunteering to carry out such a survey therefore, it was incumbent on the participants to propose, develop, implement, analyze, and report the results of that survey. Discussion began with Calhoun, questioning the need for undertaking such a survey. Calhoun stated that in attempting to examine Program records for quality we must be careful how quality is defined. As an alternative to a survey of records, Calhoun proposed undertaking a study on cataloger attitudes toward BIBCO records as a way to identify the specific concerns behind the negative comments reported anecdotally to PCC members. Schuitema, countered that a sample of BIBCO records should be analyzed to determine what, if any, types of problems exist in the records to prompt the questions about quality and that perhaps this should be undertaken at the same time as the attitudinal study.

ACTION: Calhoun will send a proposal for the "cataloger's attitudes" survey to the PoCo for approval.

ACTION: The PoCo will be asked to determine if they favor a study on Program record quality.

UPDATE: Calhoun will incorporate a study on quality in her proposal for the cataloger's attitudes study.

Working Group on Series Numbering (WGSN)

Andrea Stamm (Northwestern), chair of the WGSN, reported that their committee has sent 49 letters to vendors to ask their assistance in allowing numbered series to file sequentially despite the variations in abbreviations used preceding the numeric portion of the series statement. One vendor responded with a letter of thanks. The issue to distinguish between series transcription and series access by revamping the need for 490/8XX combinations in records when the only difference between the character strings is the form of abbreviation (v. or vol.) used with the number was addressed in a letter to Bruce Johnson, chair of MARBI. Johnson suggested that the WGSN convert their proposal into a discussion paper for MARBI to be read at ALA Midwinter 2001 and also suggested that the WGSN contact AVIAC (the automation vendors' forum). The third recommendation of the WGSN which is still winding its way to resolution was the recommendation that LC issue a new LCRI to AACR2R Appendix B.9 which would add "v." as the abbreviation for "vol.". The effect of this RI would have been to reduce the number of times a 490/8XX combination would be needed in cataloging. LC's response to the recommendation was that issuing a new LCRI was contrary to the PCC mandate of "streamlining documentation and to lessen the number of LCRIs" and instead sent a rule revision proposal to the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR2 generalizing the proposal to address abbreviation of words and abbreviations beyond the "v." vs. "vol." situation in the series area. The LC proposal calls for the revision of Appendix B.5A to allow for the replacement of one form of abbreviation with another abbreviation. Schuitema, who represents the PCC at the CC:DA, stated that approval at that meeting was delayed by the fact that not all CC:DA members had the opportunity to fully review all comments. Impact on other areas of transcription must be studied before any changes can be adopted; however, it is expected that the JSC will consider the recommendation at their September meeting. The WGSN final report and results of its follow-up actions can be found on the BIBCO web site.

Due to the limitations on time Schuitema's update on the formation of the Task Force on Multiple Manifestations of Electronic Resources and the Task Group on 042 code to note authorized access points on non-AACR2 bibliographic records were not given. Information on both the charge and membership of these taskgroups is available on the PCC home page.

ACTION: The BIBCO Coordinator will ask for budgeting to allow for more time and more seating for this bi-annual meeting.