Africana Librarians Council

ALC CATALOGING COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

April 7, 2000: 9:00-10:30 am

Eleanor Deutsch Room, Fowler Museum of Cultural History Los Angeles, CA

Present: Dorothy Ansart (Indiana Univ.), Simon Bockie (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Jill Coelho (Harvard Univ.), Karen Fung (Stanford Univ.), James Gentner (Library of Congress),Miki Goral (Univ. of California, Los Angeles), Al Kagan (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Patricia Kuntz (Indiana Univ.), Deborah M. LaFond (SUNY Albany), Joseph Lauer (Michigan State Univ.), Robert Lesh (Northwestern Univ.), Ken Lohrentz (Univ. of Kansas), Lauris Olson (Univ. of Pennsylvania), Loumona Petroff (Boston Univ.), Elizabeth Plantz (Northwestern), Elisabeth Sinnott (New York Univ.), Andrea Stamm (Northwestern Univ.), Ruth Thomas (Library of Congress, Nairobi), Gretchen Walsh (Boston Univ.), Dorothy Woodson (Yale Univ.), Joanne Zellers (Library of Congress).

1. Introductions & announcements-- Chair Lauer opened the meeting at 9:05 a.m., with Sinnott as secretary.

2. Approval of the minutes of the Fall meeting (sent to list on 12/10/99)

3. Approval of agenda without additions.

4. Africana Subject Funnel (Plantz)

a: Report (Plantz) The Spring 2000 report lists 8 new subject
headings since Fall 1999, one of which has been accepted by the Library of Congress (LC). LC's new system makes it harder to check what has been done.
Kagan asked if LC accepts variation of an accepted subject heading, e.g. using Children's writing, Kenyan (English) as a model for the same in Tanzania. Plantz replied that each new heading used has to be established but that using patterns or basing headings on already established ones is very common and makes things easier.
There was a discussion of 400 fields (cross-references) sometimes pointing to 2 different languages.
b. Discussion of sources to cite: Plantz and Lauer distributed 3 lists: The selected list of Africana references sources used by LC catalogers (distributed at April 1999 workshop); an Lauer's edited version of same with comments; and the 1996 list of bibliographic sources used by the National Museum of African Art Library. During the discussion, Plantz emphasized LC's current reliance on Ethnologue. Lauer reported that the online Ethnologue is the 1996 edition, with a new edition due out later in 2000. The Committee agreed that Plantz should write to LC, asking that Olson, The peoples of Africa, be removed from the list; and that African ethnonyms (Biebuyck et al.) and (Unesco) General history of Africa be added to the lists.
Kagan asked that a list of reference sources be on the ALC web site.

5. African-American Subject Funnel (Plantz): The January report from Dorothy Washington on their survey and plans was distributed as an attachment to the Spring 2000 Africana Subject Funnel Report.

6. CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog): Stamm presented an overview of this OCLC initiative to catalog web sites. Northwestern University is working on sources about Native American peoples and see great potential for this project. Olson described the work being done at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.

7. Revision of DT schedule for Indian Ocean islands: Lauer reported on his contacts with Joe Caruso, who welcomes assistance in completing this project which he began in 1995. The next step is to compile of a list of subject headings missing from LCSH. The documentation on these would then go through the subject funnel project. The committee agreed that they would like to see DT468-469 expanded and moved to DT4000+.

8. Enhancing OCLC (Lauer, Stamm, et al.): Stamm has corrected and improved some OCLC records, using copies of suggested corrections from Lauer. Most of these involved microfilms of older monographs with incorrect ethnic or geographic headings. Northwestern has national enhance status and can make corrections on a limited basis.

9. Cataloging Priorities: Local & national. Lauer urged that catalogers think about how their expertise might lead them to give priority to certain categories. For example, he gives priority to books in Ethiopian languages. Most felt they had to give equal treatment to all, with minor adjustments. For example, Northwestern has a cataloging priorities list created in consultation with the Africana Library. Among other things it includes development plans, reference tools, conferences, and materials on AIDS.

10. Directory of African Language Expertise (Plantz/Walsh) Plantz distributed an 8-page directory of about 20 librarians or linguists willing to help with cataloging African language material. Plantz has used it to consult on a name issue. Plantz proposed to put this on the web site, perhaps with an index. Walsh has ideas for expanding. Plantz was contacted by David Dwyer, who is creating a webbook of African language resources. See http://www.isp.msu.edu/AfrLang/hiermeu.html

11. LC Report:

Cooperative Cataloging sent the following: For the first 5 months of this year we have received 7 new subject proposals [from the Africana funnel] and in FY99 we received 22 new headings.
Chair was asked to send a letter to the LC Director for Cataloging (Beacher J.E. Wiggins), asking for a report on LC activities at future meetings by someone involved with Africana cataloging.
Gentner announced that LC will be issuing guidelines on using the language codes that were changed to be compatible with ISO standards. These are already in the MARC manuals, but not yet implemented by LC. OCLC will run scans to convert the obsolete codes in the Lang fixed field and in field 041.

12. ALA report (Stamm for Dawn Bastian): CC:AAM tabled the proposal on optional access for non-Roman headings. [Details appended to minutes.]

13. New ILSs (Integrated Library Systems): Moved to Bibliography Committee meeting where librarians reported on advantages and adjustment problems with new systems. For example, some libraries only now can search the Geographic Area Codes (field 043), while other libraries have (?temporarily) lost this ability.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:37am.

Appendix: ALA REPORT by Dawn Bastian

Agenda item #7 (Non-Roman Access Points Subcommittee (NAPS) report) at the CC:AAM (Cataloging and Classification: Asian and African Materials) Midwinter meeting (San Antonio, Texas; January 16th, 2000):

The Non-Roman Access Points Subcommittee submitted its opinions, in writing, regarding James Agenbroad's proposal to amend AACR2 to CC:AAM at the Midwinter meeting in San Antonio. This proposal would allow the inclusion of non-roman headings as optional additional access points in bibliographic and authority records. NAPS members agreed that the proposal has its merits, but does not adequately address broader issues surrounding the use of non-roman headings and references in library catalogs. For example, what are the implications for names used as subjects? How do the proposed changes relate to PCC practices? What about the NAF and library management systems and their current inability to accommodate non-roman script data? What about the concept of authority control and the choice of language/script for established headings? NAPS felt issues such as these must be considered.

NAPS members felt Mr. Agenbroad's point that revising AACR2 is a time-consuming process, and that it doesn't hurt to initiate it early, is also valid. However, it was agreed it is unlikely there will be full support for his proposal until the technological issues are resolved.

Other CC:AAM members agreed with the views presented by NAPS and supported the subcommittee's recommendations, which include the following:

Recommendations

Temporarily table the proposal.
Closely monitor the activities of the MARBI Multilingual Record Task force and re-open the discussion at a later date, perhaps after ALA Annual 2001, at which time the task force is scheduled to complete a proposal dealing with multilingual issues related to MARC formats.
Consider how the proposal relates to work in progress by other committees (e.g., MARBI, CC:DA, PCC, groups in IFLA?), and, following a thorough examination of all requirements, work with Mr. Agenbroad to determine if the proposal needs to be changed.

The report has been submitted to Daniel Kinney, the chair of CC:DA (Cataloging and Classification: Description and Access).