PCC Standing Committee on Standards
2005/2006 Annual Report

submitted by Paul J. Weiss, Chair
September 27, 2006

RDA

The most significant SCS accomplishment this year was developing a response to the drafts of two of the three major sections of RDA. The Policy Committee decided that each segment of PCC should respond separately to the drafts, so our responses were SCS rather than PCC responses.

Chief concerns included:

• lack of user focus
• still overly conservative about changing current AACR2 practices
• ignoring our current environment
• the state of the art of software, systems, and databases
• society embracing the Internet as a primary information source
• the shrinking role of the catalog
• financial realities and accountability issues
• most libraries spend far more effort on copy cataloging, batch loading records from non-library sources, and database management than on original cataloging
• lack of deep thinking on the objectives and principles underlying RDA
• lack of optimizing repurposability of our metadata
• strong negative impact of developing RDA piecemeal
• sloppy and incomplete incorporation of FRBR concepts and terminology
• the very poor editorial quality of the drafts
• textual bloat
• contradictory instructions
• poor definitions and terminological control
• poor document structure, organization, clarity, and readability
• overly complex instructions
• lack of allowing
• the current U.S. standard practice of cataloging a reproduction based on its original
• the option for the "single-record approach"
• still too much coverage of presentation and storage
• lack of solution to the multitype resource problems found in AACR2
• too centered on print, text, and resources in the West European/North American publishing tradition
• over-reliance and unclear purpose of the concepts of notes and parallel information
• lack of data element hierarchies (such as Publishing, which could include Publisher, Place of Publication, and Date of Publication)
• lack of repeatability of some data elements
• poor handling of inaccurate data

We recommended to PoCo that they begin thinking how PCC might be involved in training on and implementation of RDA.

We are currently considering some additional proposed changes to RDA arising out of the development of the proposed new CONSER records standard.

LC series decision

We spent a fair bit of energy dealing with the process and content of LC's recent decision to stop tracing series, and the ensuing activity. We agreed that:

• PCC should continue to allow (but no longer require) the tracing of series in PCC bibliographic records.
• PCC should allow the continuation of series authority record contributions ( new and modified records) via NACO Series
• a traced series given in a PCC bibliographic record must be supported by a series authority record
• relevant LCRIs should be developed, including any needed to describe PCC policy that is different from national or LC policy
• PCC documentation should be brought up to date
• we should determine what the implications for MARC tagging are

We did not agree on what the required data elements should be for a PCC series authority record.

The impacts on PCC standards of LC's decision is still on our plate.

Other

I continued to participate in the activities of CC:DA in my role as PCC Liaison.

I communicated concerns to PoCo about some NISO changes in personnel and direction.

Diane Boehr served as the SCS representative on CONSER's Access Level Record for Serials Working Group and its Authentication Codes and Encoding Levels for Serials And Integrating Resources Working Group.

We decided to not respond to the draft revision to LCRI 25.13, as we don't have the relevant expertise on the committee.

We provided feedback on the PCC's draft strategic directions document.

Future

We are interested in updating the charge of SCS. We believe that SCS should:

• follow relevant metadata standards work, and respond to drafts of standards, bringing to bear the expertise and needs of PCC
• recommend to the Policy Committee adopt appropriate external standards
• identify areas within the standards world that would benefit PCC's goals by getting standardized, and step up to the plate as appropriate and develop such standards

Due to the continued lack of clarity as to what the Steering and Policy Committees want from SCS, I have not appointed any new members to the committee since 2003. We agreed that the qualifications of the committee membership should include experience with and/or expertise in:

• each of the four PCC programs
• moving image cataloging
• authority control
• non-cataloging metadata, such as Dublin Core
• CC:DA
• possibly library science educators

I communicated these issues to the chair of PCC. I have not received further information from either him or PoCo on these continuing uncertainties.