ALC Cataloging Committee Meeting
Ann Arbor, Mich. – 411 West Hall, Univ. of Michigan
Friday, May 7, 2004: 10:05 – 11:25am
Minutes
(draft of May 21, 2004)

Present: Atoma Batoma (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Andrew de Heer (Schomburg Center), Miki Goral (UCLA), Margaret Hughes (Stanford Univ.), Bassey Irele (Harvard Univ.), Patricia Kuntz (Madison, Wisc.), Joseph Lauer (Michigan State Univ.), Robert Lesh (Northwestern Univ.), Peter Limb (Michigan State Univ.), Lauris Olson (U. of Pennsylvania), Laverne Page (Library of Congress), Afeworki Paulos (Univ. of Michigan), Loumona Petroff (Boston Univ.), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern Univ.), Dan Reboussin (Univ. of Florida), Shoshanah Seidman (Northwestern Univ.), David Westley (Boston Univ.).

1-3. Meeting opened with introductions, the approval of the Fall meeting’s minutes and the addition of items 7-9 to the agenda.

4. Indian Ocean islands in the DT classification (Hughes)
The work started by Joe Caruso in the 1990s is being revived. It is expected that some new time period subjects will be needed to justify some of the proposed classification lines. It was noted that ALC has no Madagascar or Mauritius specialists.

5. Africana Subject Funnel report (Lauer)
The Report was distributed and will be posted on the ALC website. Additional comments and discussion: a) There is still a problem with some proposals not making it into the Tentative Weekly List. Since these omitted proposals are recorded as submitted in “Library of Congress Authorities” http://authorities.loc.gov/, they have obviously fallen into a problem file. b) LC sometimes changes the heading submitted, but no list of changed heading was wanted by the group. c) 2 examples of redundant headings which I am trying to correct: Halpulaar (=Toucouleur) and Somaliland (use Somalis for land occupied by Somali people). d) More documentation is needed for abandoning use “Bantu-speaking peoples.” Some suggested contacting the South African ambassador or South African librarians.

Olson proposed posting our proposals online as an example of good practices. Lauer expressed reservations since we do not always follow LC policy. For example, he cites Ethnologue online as Ethnologue 2000, since this is not an integrating resource. There was also a discussion of the comparative value of reference works versus the usage of recent scholars. Lauer’s May 5th memo to the PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging) list [see Appendix] also addressed this issue. Discussion moved to issue of improving relations with CPSO. Ideas included inviting a cataloger to our meetings and contacting key people at LC.

6. Reports & Announcements:
a. Northwestern Univ. cataloging (Lesh): Main item of interest and discussion was cataloging and digitizing of 300 posters. [See Appendix B for more details.]

b. CC:AAM (ALA's Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials) (Lesh)
The main agenda issue was a discussion of Agenbroad’s proposal to expand use of Unicode. Individuals were asked to contact their IT people and let Lesh know of reactions before the June meeting in Orlando. Lesh has conferred with Northwestern’s Gary Strawn who recommended urging MARBI to implement ALL of Unicode in the MARC Unicode/UCS (16 bit) format on an accelerated basis. [See Appendix C.]

Limb moved a motion to support Strawn's position on Unicode. After some discussion about waiting until we had more information, the following resolution was passed without opposition: The ALC Cataloging Committee supports the expanded use of the MARC Unicode/UCS (16 bit) format.

c. Library of Congress (Page)
Gabe Horchler heads the Business and Economics (BE) Team, Social Sciences Cataloging Division, which does subject cataloging for books which received descriptive cataloging in the Nairobi Office. It also searches monographic series and provides links to digital versions of these titles. E.g., see LCCN 200320174.

The Cooperative Cataloging Team, for which Mr. Horchler is the acting team leader, has established a number of cooperative programs with South African libraries (e.g., University of Stellenbosch and the University of Cape Town) whereby these libraries contribute name and subject authority records to the LC database.

Barbara Tillett, Chief, Cataloging and Support Office (CPSO) sent excerpts from CPSO reports. Noteworthy developments included reviewing policies for using unicode to attach non-roman scripts in authority records; review of the Kurdish and Modern Greek romanization tables; changing headings such as “Australian aborigines” to “Aboriginal Australians” etc.

7. Unicode (Hughes)
Olson reported on graduate seminar on Unicode at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Limb urged debate on the list.
[See also CCAAM report above.]

8. North American title count (Olson) – No one knew if being done this year.

9. Searching subject headings in OPACs (Goral)
ULCA non-catalagoers are upset with a new system that will not allow keyword searches of subject headings. [However, a keyword search of “Nigerian Civil War” should lead to numerous records with the correct heading (Nigeria—History—Civil War, 1967-1970).] The current absence of cross-references in their OPAC makes it critical that the most common form be used in headings.

10. Other:
Limb asked attendees to review the questions and issues in the chair’s list of “Discussion Items” [See Appendix D] which we did not have time to discuss.

APPENDIX A
LAUER MEMO TO PCCLIST
May 5, 2004

Subject: SACO FAQ overemphasizes reference works

Is anyone else bothered by the response to the following FAQ?
6. Are some research sources preferred over others?
Generally, citation of authoritative reference sources is preferred over citation of usage in titles to support the choice of heading. Examples of authoritative reference sources are: Dictionaries or glossaries, Encyclopedias, Thesauri, and/or Indexes. …
… Finding usage of terms and phrases in titles in large databases (e.g., LC database, OCLC's WorldCat, the WWW) may demonstrate that a particular term or phrase is in use and has literary warrant, but it doesn't necessarily indicate that it is the predominant or best way of referring to a topic. …
(See FAQ on SACO Subject Heading Proposals at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/saco/sacogenfaq.html)

I have 2 problems with the response to this FAQ:
1) My training in history taught me that primary sources are to be preferred to secondary sources. Reference works are secondary works.

2) This reponse runs counter to the first sentence of the H202:
Proposed subject headings and their associated “used for” references should reflect both the terminology used in current literature on the topic in question [my bold], and the system of language, construction, and style used in Library of Congress Subject Headings. …

CPSO (Cataloging Policy and Support Office) has fallen into the habit of giving priority to the terminology used in reference works. This should change.

I do not question the need for research to document that “the term being proposed as a heading has been found in existing literature” (2d sentence of H202).

But two changes in the work environment over the past decade have made it both possible and desirable to abandon the older reliance on reference works as a surrogate for the existing literature.

1. Online union catalogs, periodical indexes, and full-text documents on the web have made it possible to search the current existing literature (i.e., works on the topic) with the same speed as checking a printed (dated and not necessarily reliable) reference work.

2. The creation of PCC has vastly expanded the pool of subject expertise among working catalogers. For most/many subjects, there are now catalogers who can critically evaluate the information available in both primary and secondary (reference) works. In a truly cooperative program, this expertise would be utilized.

Headings in LCSH should not be dependent upon headings in other secondary works.
We should lead, not trail.

APPENDIX B
NORTHWESTERN REPORT

1. NUL has completed cataloging a collection of about 300 Africana posters, and they are digitized and loaded on the web. The 856 field in the record leads to the poster’s website.

2. NUL has constituted an initiative group for Encoded Archival Description, and the group is setting NUL guidelines for the cataloging of the Winterton Collection. Eventually, the 65,000 individual photos of the Winterton Collection will be digitized and mounted on the web.

3. The backlog is at 13,879 titles, down from 26,000 in the 2001/2 fiscal year.

4. Large ranges of the Africana collection are being relocated to the compact storage area in the basement of the main library

5. NUL is continuing to catalog a high volume of African children's literature from current receipts and the titles in a major purchase of a children's collection.

APPENDIX C
CC:AAM REPORT ON MEETING IN SAN DIEGO, JAN. 2004
by Bob Lesh

Agenbroad Proposal:
The most prominent feature of the meeting was the lively discussion of Jim Agenbroad’s proposal entitled: Consolidated Character Repertoire Expansion. Abenbroad noted that the June, 2002, meeting of MARBI approved the two character set repertoire expansion proposals, the first involving the addition of a 630 character set for Canadian aboriginal languages to the MARC Unicode/UCS repertoire and the second adding the esszed and euro symbol to both the MARC-8 and the MARC Unicode/UCS repertoire. From this and other trends within the field, Agenbroad surmises that both the MARC-8 (8-bit) encoding and the MARC Unicode/UCS (16-bit) encoding will be maintained into the indefinite future. Currently the MARC Unicode/UCS (16-bit) specifications allow for the representation of MARC-8 (8-bit) character repertoires, permitting the exchange of character data between the two systems. Agenbroad states that: “This ‘one repertoire, two encodings’ approach is intended to permit round-trip conversion between the two encodings ‘during the period of transition from a largely 8-bit environment to a MARC Unicode/UCS 16-bit environment’.” Agenbroad proposes the addition of the new MARC character repertoires to both MARC-8 and MARC Unicode/UCS. He suggests that this could be done for the MARC-8 character set by using ISO 2022 escape sequences, as has been done with several other non-Roman writing systems. He admits that the ISO 2022 escape sequences are a bit cumbersome, but they have been successfully used for some years in the exchange of MARC data. Agenbroad proposes 37 new character sets for the MARC-8/MARC Unicode/UCS expansion, including Ethiopic. In the future, this initiative could encompass non-Roman characters, which are not currently included in the MARC-8 repertoire, such as the non-Roman characters that appear in many African languages. Agenbroad also suggests several other alternatives to his proposal.

The ALC Cataloging Committee had endorsed this character expansion, and as the representative of the Committee, I endorsed the Agenbroad proposal and requested advancement by CC:AAM and MARBI.

Joan Aliprand, representing RLG, expressed vehement opposition to the Agenbroad proposal. She mentioned that not all technical aspects of existing MARC Unicode/UCS repertoire have been smoothed out. It would be advisable to stabilize the currently approved character sets and ease the exchange of data among institutions before adding still new character sets. Aliprand expressed opposition on the addition of new character sets to MARC-8, which she characterized as a dying technology. As an expert in the field, Aliprand reserved her strongest critique for the technical feasibility of the Agenbroad proposal and affirmed that it will not work. She asked the committee members if they had consulted appropriate IT people within their own institutions to get their opinion on the feasibility of the proposal. When she learned that no IT people had been consulted, she proposed that the members proceed to this consultation and share the results with CC:AAM at the Orlando meeting. A resolution was passed to this effect.

Northwestern’s Gary Strawn was consulted about the Agenbroad proposal. He agreed with Aliprand’s point that Agenbroad was proposing a new standard where standards already exist. Strawn was of the opinion that the implementation of new character repertoires for MARC-8 (8-bit) was highly unlikely when work is already in progress for this expansion in the MARC Unicode/UCS (16 bit) format. Strawn recommended urging MARBI to implement ALL of Unicode in the MARC Unicode/UCS format on an accelerated basis. This recommendation essentially embraces Agenbroad’s first alternative (p. 4). This would require MARC software vendors to enhance their systems soon so that libraries could improve the description and access of materials in many other character sets /alphabets in the MARC Unicode/UCS (16 bit) format.

Annual Program:
CC:AAM is proceeding with plans for its annual program entitled: Library Catalogs and Non-Roman Scripts: Development and Implementation of Unicode for Cataloging and Public Access. This program consists of a panel discussion and will take place on Saturday, June 26, 2004, from 8:30AM-12:00PM. The program is co-sponsored by ACRL Slavic and Eastern European Section. The program is still being determined. Among the five panelists being considered are: Barbara Tillett (LC), Joan Aliprand (RLG), Marty Withrow (OCLC, Michael Kaplan (Ex Libris), and Jost Gippert (Universität Frankfurt). Each speaker will be introduced by David Nelson and have 20 minutes for their presentation.

Turkish Article Bir:
The Committee agreed to recommend deleting “bir” as a Turkish article in AACR2. It was agreed to drop consideration of the article in Tongan and defer any discussion of Malay personal names due to lack of authoritative information on the topics.

Kurdish Romanization Revision:
The Committee approved the revision of the Kurdish Romanization Table after receiving a strong endorsement letter from David Hirsch. MELA had previously endorsed the proposal at its November, 2003, annual meeting.

Charge Review:
CC:AAM discussed its charge review and questionnaire. The Committee wanted to define the role of area specialist and generalist as a designation for its members. Further clarification was requested from CCS (Committee on Cataloging: Access and Description). This topic is related to the Committee designations of “East Asia area specialist” and “Japanese specialist”, which seem to overlap.

Reports:
Due to lack of time, reports from LC, OCLC, RLC, and ALC Cataloging Committee were skipped. Written reports will be available and may be discussed by email.

APPENDIX D
DISCUSSION ITEMS [not addressed at meeting]

Dialect vs. language in LCSH:
Should “dialect” be used with Pulaar or Adamawa Fula? (These are regional variants of Fulfulde/Fula.)
What about Djula language or Bambara language, which are regional variants of Mandingo/Manding/Mande/Mandekan?

Best practice when language and people names differ
Fulfulde and Fulbe/Fulani (LCSH: Fula); Kinyarwanda and ?; Twi and Akan.
Except for Arabic/Arab, LCSH mostly uses identical names.

Anachronisms in the LC classification schedules.
a. “Special languages” (in the P’s).
b. British Africa, German Africa, etc. at S327-378

Other classification issues:
a. What to do about alphabetical order when name changes
b. Do we need new numbers (& headings) for recent history of large countries.

Misuse of reference sources in authority work, etc.
Considered by some as more authoritative than the primary literature.
Using uncritically leads to odd results.
Uncritical reviews by librarians.
Time and money wasted on redundant materials.

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Page Last Updated November 3, 2004