COOPERATIVE CATALOGING COUNCIL

TASK GROUP 4: STANDARDS

FINAL REPORT 10/29/93

TASK GROUP MEMBERS: Willy Cromwell, Stanford University (Chair); Karen Smith- Yoshimura, RLG (Cooperative Cataloging Council Liaison); Kay Guiles and Lynn El-Hoshy (Library of Congress Liaisons); Roxanne Sellberg, University of Washington; Margaret Shen, Cleveland Public Library

PART I. PRELIMINARIES

GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS:

1. The standards issues discussed below refer to records created by participants in a formal national cooperative cataloging program, hereafter referred to in this report as the program.
2. The program will have a formal administrative structure specifying responsibility for program development and oversight.

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Once the bibliographic objectives and the context of a national cooperative cataloging program are determined, the program administrative body should consider the most effective means of assessing/changing current standard descriptive cataloging rules and practice and subject cataloging practice in support of those objectives.
2. Until this process is complete, use of current standard practice, subject to modification as judged appropriate, will be followed.

PART II. CHARGE 1: DEVELOP STANDARDS THAT WILL SUPPORT WIDE USE OF RECORDS IN A COST-EFFECTIVE MANNER

ASSUMPTIONS:

1. Not all potential participants in a national cooperative cataloging program are willing or able to commit to the creation of a full level catalog record as currently defined.
2. There is a core level of elements necessary to effective cooperative use of a catalog record; that level exceeds the currently defined minimal level but does not necessarily always equate to the currently defined full level.
3. A catalog record that can be used with minimal augmentation in a majority of cases is an effective and viable vehicle in a cooperative cataloging program even though it does not necessarily always meet all the needs of each participant.
4. A standard that articulates such a record is necessary in order for the program to achieve the Cooperative Cataloging Council's goals 1.1, 1.2 and 2.1.
5. It is to the advantage of the cooperative community to endorse the definition of a core level standard that:
   1. may serve to increase the pool of useable records by offering an alternative to the either/or choice between the minimal level vs. full level cataloging;
   2. can be trusted to be consistent and in compliance to a known standard;
   3. has access points in authorized forms supported by records in a national authority file.

1. RECOMMENDATIONS: BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
   1. Two levels of program record should be recognized: full level as currently defined and a core record (defined in PART IV below). Participating institutions may choose to catalog at either level or they may use both levels selectively.
   2. With respect to the proposed core record defined in PART IV:
      1. the specified elements pertain to books; if the concept of a core record is judged viable, similar standards should be developed for the monographic forms of non-book materials; this work should be done through task groups representative of these communities under the aegis of the administrative body of the program;
      2. the program should coordinate with the CONSER program, which is currently considering definition of a core record for serials;
      3. the core record does not deal with requirements for non-Latin scripts; this work should be done through a task group representing JACKPHY (Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hebrew, Yiddish) library communities;
      4. the development of the core record and its constituent parts as a standard should be an evolutionary process, subject to a variety of considerations; for the immediate future, the content of the fields specified in the core record should conform to the requirements of relevant current standards (although not all the elements specified by current standards need be included in the core record). In the longer term they will be impacted by the results of whatever changes in relevant standards are made as suggested in the GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS (e.g., perhaps a reassessment and simplification of the rules governing main entry);
      5. it is assumed that the state of any particular core record is a dynamic one, with participants choosing to use it as it is, using it incrementally by adding only those data elements needed by the modifying participant, or enhancing it to full level.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS. AUTHORITY RECORDS
   1. All access points in program records, core and full level, will be in authorized forms and supported by authority work.
   2. Program participants will be asked to contribute authority records for previously unestablished headings to the national authority file with the understanding that the mechanics of such contributions may vary according to whether the contribution relates to the descriptive or subject aspect of cataloging.
   3. The program should charge a task group to build upon the findings of the TG3 relevant to standards issues and consider the following issues:
      1. feasibility and definition of a core level authority record(s) for names, series, and subjects,
      2. the extent to which each individual heading is to be represented by a counterpart authority record, e.g. multiple headings for the same conference with different venues, dates, or both,
      3. need for and definition of editing standards for program authority records.
   4. Systematic simplification of rules and other conventions that govern creation of authority records should be assigned a high priority.

PART II. CHARGES 2 and 3: PROMOTE AND FACILITATE THE USE OF MUTUALLY ACCEPTED STANDARDS; EVALUATE THE NEED FOR QUALITY STANDARDS AND CONFORMANCE MEASURES

The following describes both bibliographic and authority records:

ASSUMPTIONS

1. A cooperative program only has value if its product is trusted to be truly consistent, accurate and authoritative.
2. If the program record is to retain its guarantee of quality, it should be modified/enhanced by program participants only, although it may be copied and enhanced for local use by non-participants.
3. Centrally distributed program records that can be redistributed when enhanced or modified by program participants, overwriting earlier versions of the same record are desirable in order to guarantee and maintain the integrity of program records
4. Formal training programs and documentation are key to implementing standards endorsed by the program and guaranteeing the quality of its product.
5. Program records must be clearly identified as such
   1. to be optimally valuable for technical services processing use, and
   2. for purposes of record management, e.g., appropriate disposition of multiple iterations of records for the same work, particularly in utilities, but also in other systems.
6. Program records will be widely used and enhanced by other participants making peer review of record quality viable as a quality assurance option.

RECOMMENDATIONS: PROMULGATION OF STANDARD AND QUALITY CONFORMANCE MEASURES

1. The governing body of the program should assume responsibility for program standards and their continuing development including publication and distribution. Any or all of these responsibilities may be delegated with appropriate safeguards for the integrity of the program.
2. Participant institutions (or alternatively, individual catalogers) should undergo a formal training process and be required to demonstrate competence prior to assuming the full prerogatives of membership.
3. Institutions (or alternatively individuals) that undergo such training should be "certified" in some way.
4. Periodic updating of skills at workshops and training seminars should be required to retain certification.
5. Program participants should be expected to correct verifiable errors (e.g. , mistranscriptions, typos or MARC tagging errors) in program records created by other participants; they may wish to notify other participants if they notice an excessive number of such errors.
6. Program participants, in the course of using participant copy, should be expected to notify the responsible participant institution of more substantive errors and request that they be corrected by the responsible cataloging agency.
7. The preferred communication mechanism for participant libraries should be electronic mail.
8. A program listserv should be created for communication of issues of general interest and consultation on cataloging matters; the list will, through its "review" function, provide an up-to-date listing of electronic mail addresses of participant institutions.

RELATED RECOMMENDATIONS: INTEGRITY OF PROGRAM RECORDS

1. Program records, both core and full, should be distinctly identified/characterized as such.
2. Such identification should entail:
   1. an identification of fullness of record (core record as intermediate between minimum and full level)
   2. identification in support of record management within various utilities and systems,
   3. a means of attesting to the authoritativeness and authentication status of a record.
3. As likely means of indicating these qualities respectively, the definition of appropriate values of USMARC ldr/17 (encoding level), USMARC 008/39 (cataloging source), and USMARC 042 (authentication field) should be considered.
4. Use of these data elements should facilitate the disposition and management of records in databases, both primary-cluster and master-record oriented, according to the following suggested order of precedence:
   1. program full level record;
   2. program core-level record;
   3. non-program records, based on encoding level.
5. In order to preserve the integrity of program records, they should be centrally distributed; they should also be redistributed when enhanced or modified by participants.

PART IV. PROPOSED CORE RECORD

We offer below a proposal outlining the data elements which the Task Group deems representative of the information essential to ensure that program records are generally usable. There may be cases when an item is fully cataloged according to current standards without exceeding the standard described below. However, the task group believes that the emphasis on streamlining the assignment of subject and descriptive access points as well as the tolerance for local needs and policies that we believe to be embodied in the standard will make it viable for many potential program participants.

FIXED FIELD VALUES: Code fully.

DISCUSSION: These fields may be used as primary or secondary (i.e. limiting) access devices in OPACS and in the utilities; they may be used for record sorting, and potentially they may be used to generate notes (e.g., bibliography or index notes).

020,$a (ISBN): If present on item

040 (Cataloging source)

042 (Authentication code)

050,082,086, etc.: Assign at least one classification number from an established classification system recognized by USMARC.

DISCUSSION: This specification must necessarily be stated in the broadest terms to accommodate a wide variety of needs. The Task Group recognizes that assignment in some cases will constitute solely classification while in others it will consist of a full call number. While this fact, as well as the use of any of a variety of classification systems may mitigate against the availability of records that can be used without modification, it is in support of the need to accommodate the broad spectrum of the library community in soliciting as wide a pool of records as possible.

1XX (Main Entry): If applicable

240 (Uniform title): If known or readily inferred from material being cataloged.

245-300 (Title page transcription through physical description): Describe fully, using all data elements appropriate to the item described.

4XX (Series area): Transcribe series if present. Other aspects of series treatment (classification (together or individually), analysis, tracing) are local in nature. If, however, a participant chooses to trace a series, it must be in an authoritative form (440/8XX as appropriate) supported either by an existing national-level authority record or one that is supplied by the participant if an authority record does not already exist.

5XX (Note Fields): Minimally, include the following if appropriate:

500: Note for source of title if not from t.p.

505: (Contents note) For multi-part items with separate titles

533: (Reproduction note)

DISCUSSION: The basis for the recommendation is that only those notes that support identification of an item need be included. No doubt these criteria will vary from one form of material to another. With respect to justification of added entries, that function may be provided alternatively in some cases through other data elements, e.g., the tagging itself or use of relators.

6XX (Subject headings): If appropriate, assign from an established thesaurus or subject heading system recognized by USMARC at least one or two subject headings at the appropriate level of specificity.

DISCUSSION: The recommendation is cast in the form of "one or two" to convey the idea that one is not an absolute limit, to preclude any agonizing that might be stimulated by the limit to one, and to accommodate certain situations in which multiple subject headings are called for. The inclusion of the phrase "at least" is intended to indicate that the stipulation, while describing a sufficiency for the core record, is not necessarily a strict upper limit.

7XX (Added entries): Using judgment and assessing each item on a case by case basis, assign:

1. a complement of added entries that covers at least the primary relationships associated with a work (e.g. joint authors);
2. added entries to bring out title access information judged to be important.

DISCUSSION: For both 1) and 2) above, determination of primary relationships and of the relative importance of title access information are intended to reflect either individual cataloger's judgment or the institutional policy of the participant.

8XX (Established form of series if different from that in 490 field): If series is traced, use as appropriate.