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PCC Participants' Meeting Summary

ALA Annual Conference, June 27, 2004 Orlando, Fla.


Welcome and report on the PCC

Carlen RuschoffCarlen Ruschoff, chair of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) opened the meeting of the PCC Participants meeting at the 2004 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. She highlighted PCC achievements accomplished since the ALA Midwinter meeting which included welcoming the first Alaska participants into the PCC family. Ruschoff reported on the CONSER Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment that was held in March 2004 convened to discuss metadata and record creation needs. The most significant news focused on the restructuring of SACO into an official component program of the PCC that has definitive program parameters and guidelines for membership. SACO membership is open to any institution that already participates in one of the other PCC's component programs (BIBCO/CONSER/NACO). Under the auspices of the PCC Steering Committee invitations will be issued to those institutions which currently contribute only subject proposals to join the newly-formed official program.

Ruschoff reported that a survey of CJK contributors to PCC programs has been completed and revealed that many CJK NACO records are being submitted to the LC/NAF. Although there was a good response to the CJK survey, Ruschoff did note that a few key institutions that create CJK name authority records did not respond. PCC institutions are to encourage NACO contributions by CJK catalogers at their institutions.

Ruschoff noted that during the meeting of the ALCTS Directors of Technical Services of Large Research Libraries, the comprehensive NACO training provided by the PCC was praised for its thorough documentation and excellent trainers. Several new PCC training initiatives have begun this fiscal year including the development of the subject training workshop and a partnership between ALCTS, PCC, and CDS to maintain and distribute PCC course materials.

Ruschoff reported that the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) will be revising the PCC Tactical Plan in November. Any and all new ideas on future directions of the PCC are welcomed and should be sent to Roxanne Sellberg, chair-elect of the PoCo. Ruschoff also announced the election results of the newly-appointed PoCo representatives:

  • BIBCO: Joan Swanekamp (Yale)
  • CONSER: Mark R. Watson (U. of Oregon)
  • NACO: Deborah Kempe (Frick Art Reference)

Ruschoff thanked those responsible for insuring the success of the PCC programs including the PCC trainers, the standing committees, the task group members, the program coordinators, the Policy and Steering committees, the Cooperative Cataloging Team, the CONSER staff, and, of course, last, but not least, the PCC participants themselves.

Ruschoff gave special recognition and thanks to Cornelia Goode, who recently retired from the Cooperative Cataloging Team at LC. Cornelia was an integral part of planning and facilitating PCC Program efforts; her knowledge, skills, and collegiality will be greatly missed.

Ana Cristan, Les Hawkins Program Coordinator Reports

Ana Cristán, BIBCO Coordinator, gave a summary of the BIBCO-At-Large meeting. A "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) on PCC use of the 042 field will be posted on the PCC Web site. The new SACO Program application form and updated FAQs are now available on the PCC Web site. Training and mentoring information will also be made available. Lastly, Cristán reported on personnel changes in the Cooperative Cataloging Team at LC. Carolyn Sturtevant is both the NACO Coordinator and the acting BIBCO Coordinator. Anthony Franks is acting team leader of the Cooperative Cataloging Team.

Les Hawkins, CONSER Coordinator, reported on CONSER activities at ALA. CONSER-At-Large meeting attendees discussed FRBR and its application to serials. CONSER members thought it a good idea to think about the bibliographic relationships that are recorded in serial records and decide how this existing information can be usefully displayed, through the FRBR model or in some modified form of it. Publications Patterns Initiative members discussed vendor compatibility with the MARC holdings format. Ruth Haas (Harvard) will give a presentation on the Publication Patterns Initiative at the upcoming IFLA meeting in Buenos Aires.

Standing Committee Chair Reports

Gary Charbonneau, Paul Weiss, 
David Banush
Gary Charbonneau, Paul Weiss, David Banush

Gary Charbonneau, chair of the Standing Committee on Automation gave an overview of the committee's activities. Charbonneau welcomed new member, Jane Grawemeyer, vendor representative from SIRSI. Robert Bremer of OCLC has completed work on a macro to create an e-serial record from an existing print record as a part of the Third Task Group on Journals in Aggregator Databases. The macro is now available for CatME and will soon be available for use with Connexion. The Task Group on OPAC displays of linking entries is now working on its final report. Ruth Bogan is working on a survey to inventory vendors on their capability to develop automated authority generators and the means for real time upload to the utilities.

Paul Weiss, chair of the Standing Committee on Standards reported on the work of several standards-related activities. The committee recommended names for the authority files and the PCC Steering Committee selected the following official names:

LC/NACO Authority File

LC/SACO Authority File

The Task Group on Conference Publications has made recommendations for recording the title proper of conference names and practices for call and class numbers. The Joint Task Group on International Participation in the PCC concluded its work within the past year and made 33 recommendations for the PCC Steering Committee to consider.

David Banush, chair of the Standing Committee on Training, reported on the activities of the joint PCC/ALCTS training initiatives. The first joint workshop, "Effective Subject Cataloging using LCSH", was held as a two-day ALA pre-conference and attracted 83 attendees. The train-the-trainer session for this workshop was held in May. Future workshops are to include a name authorities workshop.

CONSER Summit

Les Hawkins gave an overview of the CONSER Summit, a meeting of 70 representatives from all library service areas and the serials industry. Many had overlapping roles and experience with library work, commercial information services, and standards development. The Summit was organized to help identify opportunities for collaboration, data sharing, and deciding the most useful content of the CONSER record. Panel discussions and facilitated breakout sessions provided specific recommendations for CONSER and the PCC in providing metadata for electronic resources.

One of the persistent themes of the Summit was fulfilling user needs; users of library systems vary greatly in information-seeking behavior and information needs. Researchers are interested in directly obtaining full text and it is not important to many of these users whether it is obtained through Google or through a library search tool. Librarians need to track resources at the title and summary holdings level and often make use of separate records for electronic and print versions. These records, in turn, are sometimes confusing to researchers.

Interoperability among systems was another theme. Mismatches in data contained in interacting systems such as OPACs, indexing tools, and link resolvers interfere with researchers obtaining full text. Robust resource identifiers at the title, version, and package levels are needed to make these systems work well together. One of the recommendations of the Summit was to work closely with the ISSN Network to help assure that correct ISSN data are being recorded in CONSER records.

Regina Reynolds provided an overview of the ISSN revision process. The group working on the revision, ISO/TC 46/SC9/Working Group 5 (WG5), met in May 2004 and reviewed results of a survey that asked ISSN users about four possible scenarios for ISSN revision:

  1. Maintain the status quo, assign separate ISSN to separate manifestations
  2. Change the ISSN to title-level identifier
  3. Use one base ISSN plus a suffix to identify other manifestations
  4. Choose a "master" title-level ISSN accompanied by manifestation ISSN

None of these scenarios met the needs of all ISSN user communities. An alternative proposal was formulated by the revision group and is known as "functional granularity". It involves providing the publisher control in assigning ISSN. If the publisher prefers to use one ISSN to identify both the print and online titles, the publisher could do that. If the publisher, because of the needs of its trading partners, needs to assign separate ISSN to separate manifestations, the publisher could do that. The ISSN Network would need to consider providing training or mentorship for publishers to familiarize them with the philosophy and guidelines for assigning ISSN under functional granularity.

The concept of functional granularity is one of three activities the revision group is pursuing. Two other activities address title-level identification and access to metadata in the ISSN database. Title and manifestation level identification are important in identifying content for indexing, access through particular products, and linking applications, including reference linking and OpenURL. Using the ISSN as a title-level identifier embedded within another identifier, such as the (International Standard Text Code) (ISTC), a Uniform Resource Name (URN), or Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may help address title and manifestation identification. The exact mechanism for this still needs to be developed.

The revision group and the ISSN Network are looking at the functionality of the ISSN database and various new services that could be generated from it. Authoritative metadata associated with the ISSN are important for CONSER records and other library systems that rely on ISSN data for linking and delivering text. CONSER is polling its membership on behalf of the ISSN Network to determine the uses for different types of services that the ISSN database could provide to assure correct ISSN data on CONSER records.

Valerie Bross gave an overview of the CONSER Summit recommendation to accommodate OpenURLs on CONSER records. A CONSER task group has been appointed to look into use of URLs on CONSER records in general and specifically to consider the recommendation from the Summit.

Bross noted that CONSER has provided documentation for selecting and recording URLs in records since the MARC 856 field became available. GPO and members of the CONSER PURL Project have used Persistent Universal Resource Locators (PURLs) to maintain URLs for government and free e-resources in the CONSER database. Maintenance of URLs for subscription resources are managed locally in different ways-- through serials management companies, link checking, or other local systems.

The recommendation to accommodate OpenURL linking in CONSER records raises several questions. What exactly does it mean to accommodate OpenURL at the title-level in CONSER records? Several providers such as Ingenta and Blackwell incorporate OpenURL servers to provide a redirect to query a user's local link server. URLs associated with these services often work well with local linking services, but stop working if the URL created by the host changes. A problem in attempting to construct OpenURLs rather than generating them on the fly is that non-UTF-8 diacritics or characters would need to be coded by hand. The differences between versions 0.1 and 1.0 of the OpenURL standard may also complicate matters.

DOIs assigned at the title-level and using a title-level ISSN could be used as part of a URL pointing to the CrossRef link resolver, which, if a library is registered with CrossRef, redirects a user to a local link server. Ideal linking within an institution is to provide links that resolve to an institution's local link resolver rather than to a publisher site. DOIs are also assigned and maintained by publishers, providing a means to maintain links for paid resources.

Assignment of an appropriate ISSN to be part of a title-level DOI would need to be coordinated with the ISSN revision process and the ISSN Network. How would publishers be mandated to use the appropriate ISSN as part of a title-level DOI assignment? If a URL associated with a DOI changes how publishers notified?

Awards and Recognition:

Valerie Bross (UCLA) in recognition of her contributions and leadership as co-chair of the PCC Joint Standing Committee on Training and Standing Committee on Standards Task Group on Implementation of Integrating Resources

John B. Wright (Brigham Young University) in recognition of his contributions and leadership as co-chair of the PCC Joint Standing Committee on Training and Standing Committee on Standards Task Group on Implementation of Integrating Resources

John B. Wright (BYU) in recognition of his contributions and leadership as chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards/Standing Committee on Training Joint Task Group on International Participation in the PCC

Jimmie Lundgren (University of Florida) in recognition of her contributions and leadership as chair of its Task Group on SACO Program Development

David Van Hoy (MIT) in recognition of his contributions and leadership as chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards Task Group on Conference Publications

Manon Théroux (Yale) in recognition of her contributions and leadership as chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards Task Group on the Function of the Authority File

Steven Miller (University of Wisconsin) in recognition of his contributions and leadership as chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Training Task Group on Integrating Resources Training

Carol Hixson (University of Oregon) in recognition of her contributions and leadership as co-chair of the ALCTS/Subject Analysis Committee–PCC/Standing Committee on Training for the Development of Subject Cataloging Training Materials

Lori Robare (University of Oregon) in recognition of her contributions and leadership as co-chair of the ALCTS/Subject Analysis Committee–PCC/Standing Committee on Training for the Development of Subject Cataloging Training Materials

Sherry Kelley (Smithsonian) in recognition of her active contributions to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee as a representative of the member NACO institutions

Jim Stickman (University of Washington) in recognition of his active contributions to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee as a representative of the member CONSER institutions

Ana Cristán (Library of Congress) in recognition of her leadership as the BIBCO Coordinator, for her support and training of BIBCO libraries, and for her tireless efforts to articulate the goals, recommendations, and responses of the Policy Committee to BIBCO constituents

Carlen Ruschoff (University of Maryland) with gratitude for her sustained contributions as a member and for her outstanding leadership as chair of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee

Roxanne Sellberg (Northwestern University), PCC Chair-Elect, presenting some of the awards
Valerie Bross and Carlen Ruschoff Ana Cristan Lori Robare
Valerie Bross (UCLA), Carlen Ruschoff Ana Cristán (LC) Lori Robare (University of Oregon)
Manon Theroux David Van Hoy Carlen Ruschoff
Manon Théroux (Yale) David Van Hoy (MIT) Carlen Ruschoff (UMd.)
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