LC Cooperative Cataloging Discussion Group

ALA Midwinter Meeting
Sunday, January 24, 1993

John Byrum, Chief, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, began with a statement of objectives for the meeting: To disseminate and stimulate ideas for future directions in cooperative cataloging and to inform the group of improvements to existing LC programs. He pointed out that this meeting was a continuation of a similar program held by this group, then called the LC NACO Participants Discussion Group, held at the ALA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. At that time Joan Swanekamp, Brian Schottlaender and Jennifer Younger spoke to the issues involved in improving cooperative programs between LC and the nation's libraries, particularly the NACO program. LC Cooperative Cataloging Teams I and II began consideration of recommendations for changes to improve NACO operations and other cooperative programs which grew out of this meeting, a series of proposals from Columbia, and from the cooperative meetings convened by Sarah Thomas at the Library of Congress in July and November, 1992.

David Reser and Sherry Kelley, Senior Cooperative Catalogers, Cooperative Team II, reported on Cooperative Teams activity during the last six months, including implementation of recommendations for change.

94 libraries are now participating in one or more of the Cooperative Cataloging programs. Two new libraries joined NACO. The first is the Joint World Bank-International Monetary Fund Library in Washington, D.C. with Norine Vicenti as the liaison. The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) in Evanston, Illinois is the second, and newest, NACO member. ATLA becomes the third NACO "Funnel Project" joining the NACO-Music Project and the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries. Judy Knop will coordinate the project.

St. Louis University School of Law is the first of the four new NCCP libraries to become trained. Richard Amelung, the current NACO liaison, becomes the NCCP liaison. Cooperative Cataloging staff took the opportunity to revise traditional training programs for NCCP and NACO participation for the new members. The revision followed up on suggestions for change proposed by several libraries to allow for a shorter training period and a shift to greater participant orientation.

The OCLC Fiction Project achieved a significant milestone by qualifying for full independence in all categories of records.

Statistical highlights on cooperative projects for 1992 include:

• contribution of 10,000 new bibliographic records
• contribution of 67,000 new name and series authority records, accounting for over 30% of new authority records added to the LC database in 1992
• contribution of 678 new subject heading proposals, accounting for 11.5% of new proposals submitted to LCSH in 1992

Cooperative Cataloging Teams I and II report the following in response to recommendations for improvements to cooperative projects:

1. Development of a new participant-oriented NACO manual is underway. In a survey to gauge NACO member interest in creating such a manual, response was overwhelmingly positive. Volunteers were solicited to compile the manual and negotiations are currently underway between LC and one of the volunteers. An editor should be named soon.
2. In order to expedite the processing of cooperatively contributed subject heading proposals, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) will pre-approve these proposals after an intial review by Cooperative Cataloging staff. The full editorial review process will continue to take place and any changes to headings made during the weekly editorial meetings will be reported back to the initiating library.
3. A second response to recommendations to streamline subject authority work is to review the "Division of the world" outlined in DCMZ11/SCM H405. The goal would be to establish headings in the name authority file whenever appropriate thus making them in-scope for LSP contribution. This would greatly increase the timeliness of the process. Cooperating libraries are encouraged to submit suggestions for changes to Cooperative Cataloging staff.
4. Authority work for NACO contribution is to be based on searches against an appropriate shared database, OCLC, RLIN, or LC. In the past, only the LC database was used as the authoritative source for headings. LC procedures and documentation will be adjusted to reflect this change, including a revision of DCM Z1.15.10. NACO participants will still need to notify LC of any LC bibliographic records in the file needing revision as a result of newly formulated headings.
5. Routine NACO quality review will be suspended indefinitely. This decision is based on the demonstrated ability of the NCCP libraries to maintain the high quality of their records in the the absence of such review. Individual NACO libraries may choose to remain under QR if they wish. All new participants and those still in training status will continue to be reviewed.

Martha Hruska, Chair of the CONSER Policy Committee and Assistant Director for Technical Services, University of Florida Libraries, reported on the CONSER portion of the CONSER/NCCP joint meeting held at LC in November, 1992.

The major focus of the meeting was to review the CONSER mission and plan. To this end, task forces were established to refine the plan and to investigate ways of facilitating member contributions to the CONSER database. Among iniatives under review are options for batch loading through file transfers from local systems to the CONSER database and promotion of collaborative efforts with national and international programs related to serials.

Ms. Hruska presented the re-worded CONSER mission statement: "Mission: In support of the use of serial literature for research, scholarship, and general reading, the Cooperative Online Serials Program facilitates identification and description of and access to serials managed by program members and of broad general interest by: building and maintaining cooperatively a database of authoritative bibliographic information for serials; upholding standards; exercising leadership in the information community; and collaborating with national and international programs or projects related to serials."

John Byrum reported on the NCCP portion of the joint meeting. It was attended by 65 people representing 35 libraries and the Library of Congress. Several speakers addressed the group on cooperative models, past and future, including Carol Mandel and Linda Bartley. The group then developed a preliminary statement of missions and goals from which to begin work on establishing a national program for cooperative cataloging of monographs. The mission: "To provide broad bibliographic access to materials in research libraries' collections and other information resources."

Sarah Thomas, Director of Cataloging, reported on the outcome of the Cooperative Cataloging Planning Volunteers meeting held on Thursday, January 21 in Denver. The group consisted of 11 self- nominated members wishing to discuss the future of all monographic cooperative programs. A small planning group will be established to identify issues needing further research. Task forces will then be appointed to proceed with the research and a facilitator from the LC staff will be appointed to coordinate these activities. The planning group should be in place before March 15. Several funding options for the planning group have been presented.

Possible issues for further research include: -development of a global authority database and a global shelflist -further refinements to cooperation including standards, workflow, and mechanisms for record transfer such as tapeloading -identification of barriers to cooperation -facilitation of broad dialogue on cooperation. Possibilities include use of the COOPCAT listserv to exchange information and ideas, and inclusion on agendas of ALA meetings.

Dr. Thomas announced plans for availability of direct input of the 042 field into OCLC records by NCCP libraries by mid-summer. This is already available in RLIN. Libraries will use the legend "lcnccp" for original cataloging records created through the NCCP program.

Carol Mandel discussed models for future cooperative programs. She began by reminding the group that cooperative cataloging is more than just cataloging cooperatively. She identified three inadvertent enemies of cooperative cataloging: "magical thinking," "fuzzy goal" setting, and "goose killing." Ms. Mandel pointed out that a basic operations research principle, the addition of any constraint creates a burden which will at best allow no improvement in the outcome and could potentially have a negative outcome, has been ignored in past cooperative projects. With this principle in mind, there is potential conflict between goals for improving the national database versus goals for improving the system of shared cataloging. She also urged that careful analysis precede action.

Ms. Mandel invited the audience to state how cooperative programs could provide immediate relief for individual libraries. The dialogue which followed included the following points: we keep on with old models to solve new problems; we tend to have knee jerk reactions to what might be solutions; we ought to focus on a single point, asking ourselves, what will make it better in my library? Suggestions from the audience included more timely coverage of local holdings and the need to identify "acceptable quality." In response to this last point, it was suggested that librarians need to better balance quality with increased coverage.

In a final exchange on the question of what would provide immediate relief, an audience member replied that cataloging departments need a way to do better and more without having to choose one over the other. Sarah Thomas responded by stating that the LC iniatives in cooperative programs are committed to achieving this goal.