BIBCO-At-Large Meeting

Summary Report
ALA Annual, Atlanta, GA
June 16, 2002

Ana Cristán, BIBCO Coordinator, welcomed participants to the meeting, and began with announcements, in particular LC's delayed implementation of the revisions to AACR2 and the new Chapter 12 which includes integrating resources (IR). The new implementation date is December 1, 2002. She noted that there will be Train-the-Trainer session for Integrating Resources at the forthcoming ALA Midwinter and encouraged BIBCO participants to consider volunteering to become IR trainers and to look for announcements to be posted on the BIBCO listserv soon. Cristán gave news of great interest to BIBCO participants: 1) with great pleasure she extended BIBCO's appreciation to the utilities for moving forward with implementation of fields in the bibliographic record which will enable the cataloging of IRs before the implementation of fixed field code "i"; and 2) Cristán thanked OCLC for its implementation of the batchloading process which now allows PCC records to be cataloged in local systems and uploaded to OCLC at which point these records will overlay vendor records and other non-PCC records.

Cristan noted that a FAQ on cataloging electronic resources for BIBCO participants has been posted to the BIBCO website and ended with a brief report on the BIBCO Operations Committee meeting held in May. She provided a status update on the BIBCO Participants' Manual to say that it is well on track and is expected to be available before year's end.

Robert Ellett, Joint Forces Staff College, addressed the audience on his doctoral thesis which is designed to look at the use of PCC records by non-PCC libraries. Ellett is a Ph.D. candidate at Nova Southeastern University, Graduate School of Computer and Information Science. His thesis is based on a study that is designed to examine the acceptability of PCC records by examining how libraries of various types including academic, special, and public libraries use them. He will survey 72 libraries and provide analyses of the personnel level and educational background of library staff that handle PCC records. Ellett outlined in detail the methodologies he planned to use in his study and how he intends to analyze results. The overview provided was a teaser for the in-depth presentation to be given the following day at the Copy Cataloging Meeting. Ellett has promised to return to a future meeting to report on the findings and any resultant recommendations. Interested parties seeking more information on this survey may contact him directly via email at ellettr@jfsc.ndu.edu

The remainder of the meeting was turned over to Steven J. Miller, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who provided an condensed overview of the Integrating Resources Prototype workshop he had previously presented at the BIBCO OpCo meeting. His presentation gave a brief summation of the depth that will need to be addressed in cataloging integrating resources (IRS) and touched upon each facet. Miller reiterated that the date for implementation has slipped to December 1, 2002.

Miller highlighted the need for catalogers to remember when cataloging integrating resources that besides Chapter 12 of AACR2, chapters 9, 3, and occasionally 2.5 may need to be applied depending on what is being cataloged. The chapters in the LCRIs needed for BIBCO cataloging will also expand to include Chapter 1 and catalogers will need to be aware of changes in the LCRIs for Chapter 25 which may also affect IR cataloging. Other changes for the monograph catalogers to get used to will be using MARC tags which previously were only used by serial catalogers (e.g., 247; 310, 362, 550) and the description for loose-leafs will differ with the 300 subfield $a set to "v. (loose-leaf)" even when the exact number of volumes is known. The prototype presentation on which Miller based this overview is available on the BIBCO home page. Catalogers are reminded that there are sure to be some changes made to the final version of this presentation as details are worked out for the December implementation of IR cataloging guidelines; however, this is a good primer for libraries to use to begin to familiarize staff with the Chapter 12 and IR cataloging.

Following his presentation, an audience member asked "What 042 would be on PCC records for IRs, CONSER or BIBCO?" To this Cristán replied that currently discussions are underway to determine whether or not to define a new 042 for integrating resources. The IR Task Group's final report recommended the use of a new code, but this would not occur until code "i" is implemented. A follow-up question on whose responsibility cataloging IRs would fall elicited the response that IRs would fall into the BIBCO cataloger's responsibility since these will be coded for monographs until the implementation of code "i." However, there is a need for decisions at the local level to determine these workflow issues and to assure that cataloger's have the appropriate authorizations to perform IR cataloging. The meeting concluded with Cristán noting that the issues surrounding the workflow for distribution and maintenance of integrating resources are still being worked out and it is paramount that cataloger's stay abreast of the developments in the coming months.