At the inaugural meeting of the Policy Committee of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), committee members developed a strategic plan that will chart the program's course to the year 2002. Guiding that course is a new mission statement that demonstrates participants' commitment to information access:
"In support of the need to provide access to information resources the Program will seek to cooperatively increase the timely availability of authoritative records created and maintained under accepted standards, to facilitate the cost-effective creation and use of these records, and to provide leadership in the national and international information community."
The plan organizes objectives under five goals: The first concerns "Database/Bibliographic and Authority Records" and calls for increasing the timely availability of bibliographic and authority records by cataloging more resources, by producing authoritative cataloging that is widely available for sharing and use by others, and by cataloging in a cost-effective manner. The second covers "Standards" and seeks to promote the development and use of nationally and internationally accepted standards, rules, and conventions to support wide use of records. Third is "Leadership", concerned with providing leadership within the broad information community and promotion of the values of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging. Goal 4 focusses on expanding "Membership" and encourages active participation of the members. The final goal "Governance and Operations" sets out objectives related to operating the Program in a cooperative manner with an effective and efficient governance and management structure.
The full text of the PCC Strategic Plan is available on the PCC home page at URL http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/
The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Participants Group Meeting was held on Sunday, Jan. 11, 1998. Brian Schottlaender, chair, PCC Policy Committee (University of California, Los Angeles) opened the meeting and announced that the unified governance document had been approved at the inaugural meeting of the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo). That meeting was held at LC on Nov. 13-14, 1997. He thanked OCLC for providing a facilitator who was immensely helpful in moving the meeting through a day-long agenda of planning and goal setting.
Schottlaender then presented an overview of the organizational structure, which includes a Steering Committee composed of five permanent members, a nineteen member Policy Committee (PoCo) composed of the Steering Committee members and rotating members elected to represent the NACO, BIBCO, and CONSER program participants. Also among the membership of the PoCo will be six non-voting members: the three standing committee chairs, the BIBCO Coordinator, the CONSER Coordinator and the Secretariat representative from LC. The complete text of the strategic plan document and the roster of members of these committees are available on the PCC home page (URL: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/).
Schottlaender also announced that the PCC Task Group on Budget and Finance had delivered its report to the Steering Committee. He announced the formation of the PCC Nominating Committee composed of Jennifer Bowen (Eastman School of Music), Ingrid Parent (National Library of Canada), and Roxanne Selberg (Northwestern University). A slate of candidates is expected by the end of February.
He next announced that Sally Sinn (National Agricultural Library) is chair-elect of the PCC Policy Committee to succeed him in October. Michael Kaplan (Indiana University, Bloomington) will remain chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Automation until Oct. 1998 and Joan Swanekamp (Yale University) will remain chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Training until Oct. 1999. Joan Schuitema (Northwestern University), the new chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards will serve until the year 2000. At the top of this committee's list of tasks is completing the core-level record standard for computer files, as well as continuing the review of core-level record standards. The committee is also to look at collection-level record usage and at methods for the evaluation of the PCC core-level record vs. copy cataloging.
Schottlaender then proceeded to give a brief update on the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR recently held in Toronto. He noted that the papers read at the conference resulted in nine focus groups that produced the following recommendations:
Schottlaender noted that issues relating to seriality will have the most immediate impact on the PCC. The principles in the paper that Jean Hirons (Library of Congress) and Crystal Graham (University of California, San Diego) prepared are to be formalized into rule revision proposals and brought to the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) for the ALA Annual Conference in June. Hirons, together with the CONSER AACR Review Task Force, will coordinate the effort (see the separate article in LC Cataloging Newsline, v. 6, no. 3). Schottlaender also noted that the PCC has petitioned CC:DA for non-voting PCC representation.
Ann Della Porta (LC) began the Cooperative Cataloging Team report by announcing that LC has delayed the implementation of the use of second indicator value 1 for multiple surnames until the installation of the Library of Congress' integrated library system (Oct. 1999). However, there are to be two exceptions: records from the British Library and the Dance Heritage Coalition. For the full text of this announcement, visit the CPSO home page (URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso).
Della Porta announced the new BIBCO and NACO libraries that have joined the program during the past twelve months. New NACO members are: The Donohue Group, Inc.; Georgetown University; Graduate Theological Union; Louisiana State University Law Library; National Library of Scotland; Nevada State Library and Archives; Northwestern University Law Library; Seattle University Law Library; Smithsonian Institution Libraries; Stetson University Law Library; Texas A& M University; Trinity University (San Antonio, Tex.); Tulane University; University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Law Library; University of California, Los Angeles, Law Library; University of California, Berkeley, Law Library; University of Cambridge; University of Connecticut Law Library; University of Houston Law Library; University of Minnesota Law Library; University of Pennsylvania Law Library; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Law Library; University of Texas at Austin, Law Library; U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Washburn University Law Library; WLN; and two funnel projects: the Arabic Funnel Project and the OLAC Funnel Project.
The seven new BIBCO libraries added to the program in the past twelve months are: Vanderbilt University; Indiana University, Indianapolis, School of Law; Brigham Young University; California Academy of Sciences; University of Washington; Oklahoma State University; and Stanford University, bringing the total BIBCO libraries to 24.
Della Porta reported that the composition of the BIBCO Operations Committee had been announced (see separate article in LC Cataloging Newsline, v. 6, no. 3).
Next she noted that there will be a SACO workshop held at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. It is envisioned that the morning session will be devoted to the basics of subject heading proposal creation with a more advanced session in the afternoon. The date of this workshop will be announced soon.
The next Series Institute is planned for April 29-May 1, 1998. All independent NACO contributors are welcome to register for the course and should contact their NACO liaison for more information on either of these workshops. Della Porta reminded everyone that if they had not subscribed to the PCCLIST they should do so by writing to David Williamson (LC) (dawi@loc.gov).
The CONSER report given by Jean Hirons followed. She announced that Kim Dobbs retired as chief of the Serial Record Division (SRD) and that the newly appointed assistant chief, Maureen Landry, has been appointed acting chief. Hirons then noted that 1998 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the CONSER Program and that the PCC Participants Meeting at ALA Annual Conference this summer will focus on CONSER. In recognition of CONSER's achievements, CONSER is spearheading an ongoing program for serials cataloging instruction. Hirons is currently working with ALCTS and the Serials Section Education Committee to develop a training needs survey that will be distributed to various types of libraries in the coming months.
Hirons' report emphasized the process of formulating rule revision proposals for serials as a follow-up to the AACR conference. The Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR has charged Hirons and the CONSER AACR Review Task Force to propose rule revisions in support of the recommendations in the Hirons/Graham paper, "Issues Related to Seriality." To do this, four working groups are being established. The groups will concentrate on
Initial proposals are expected this summer and the groups hope to complete their work by summer 1999.
Schottlaender then introduced John Byrum, chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (LC), who presented an overview of a list of activities to support the PCC Strategic Plan that had resulted from the PCC November meeting. This list is in development and subject to review by the Policy Committee as well as the three standing committees and the two operations committees.
In the area of database development, possible activities include
Under standards development, proposed activities include
In the area of leadership, activities under consideration include
Finally, activities to support the goals of the governance and operations include
The final presentation of the evening was made by Joan Swanekamp, chair of the PCC's Standing Committee on Training. She announced that ALCTS and RUSA will jointly sponsor workshops called Cataloging Now! to promote the cataloging values adopted by the PCC. They will present traditional and contemporary work-place scenarios demonstrating the need for streamlining cataloging processes and how the newly defined core-level record standards will assist that goal. Current planning calls for a general session in the morning with three breakout sessions in the afternoon for public service librarians, catalog librarians, and administrators. The first Cataloging Now! workshop will be held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries in Anaheim, Calif. in July. These workshops are to be presented over the next three years and may be planned in conjunction with the annual meetings of the various bibliographic networks and/or as special stand-alone workshops.
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