ALC Cataloging Committee Meeting Minutes
Barristers Hall, Boston University School of Law.
Friday, May 5, 2006: 10:30am-12 noon
(draft of 9/14/06)

Present: Atoma Batoma (Univ. of Illinois at UC), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Marian Conteh Morgan (Ohio State Univ.), David Easterbrook (Northwestern Univ.), Archie Elliott (Boston Univ.), Vicki Evalds (Philadelphia), Greg Finnegan (Harvard Univ.), Karen Fung (Stanford Univ.), James Gentner (LC), Miki Goral (UCLA), Pamela Howard-Reguindin (LC-Nairobi Office), Bassey Irele (Harvard Univ.), Al Kagan (Univ. of Illinois at UC), Zbigniew Kantorosinski (LC), Patricia Kuntz (Madison, Wisc.), Joe Lauer (Michigan State Univ., ALC Cataloging Committee chair), Peter Limb (Michigan State Univ.), Heidi Lyons (Boston Univ.), Emilie Ngo-Nguidjol (UC-Berkeley), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern Univ.), Lauris Olson (Univ. of Pennsylvania), Laverne Page (LC), Loumona Petroff (Boston Univ.), Charles Riley (Yale Univ.), Ann Seskin (Boston Univ.), Gretchen Walsh (Boston Univ.), and David Westley (Boston Univ.).

1. Introductions limited to Boston University librarians.
2. Minutes of the Fall meeting accepted without amendment
3. Modification/approval of the agenda -- Short reports were moved ahead of the discussion items.

4a. Romanization rules for N'ko, Tifinagh and Vai (Riley)
N'ko and Tifinagh scripts will be available in the 5.0 version of the Unicode Standard, due to be released later this year. The Vai script will be included in the 5.1 release of the Standard. Transliteration and romanization rules will need to be established for each of these scripts, by Technical Committee 46 and ALA-LC, respectively, and it would be good if that work could go forward in tandem. Michael Everson, of the ISO TC46 committee, and Riley may be starting soon on developing proposals for romanization rules for these scripts.

4b. International Components for Unicode (ICU) (Riley)
For the Ethiopic script, an open-source transliteration tool can be developed, but various sets of existing rules need to be harmonized first. Daniel Yacob prepared a draft document [forwarded to the ALClist on 5/9] that reviews the differing transliteration methods, and he would like feedback from ALC. The document will be reviewed within the next two weeks at the University of Hamburg, before being submitted as a proposal to the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Technical Committee.

5. Africana Subject Funnel report (Lauer)
The distributed report will be posted on ALC website. Changes for Hamites/Hamitic were submitted in March but have not yet shown up on LC list of proposed changes. Olson mentioned a thread contesting the use of the qualifier (African people) for Africans living abroad. Limb complained about the continuing use of Berbers. Lauer noted that very few books use the preferred Amazigh.

6. LC decision to cease creating SARs (series authority records) [See Appendix A]
Gentner said that LC was interested in comments, and he could announce that implementation was delayed for 1 month. [Letter of May 5 from Deanna Marcum to ARL directors acknowledged a communication failure and agreed to delay implementation “until June 1 to give libraries an opportunity to adjust their local practices.”]
Lauer pointed out that what LC calls “technical reports” would also be an exception to the rule of classifying separately each individual volume in a series.

In response to a question as to how many were involved in creating NACO-level authority records, the Boston University catalogers reported that they do not participate in NACO, and they would continue to make local SARs, as their 490s are not indexed.
Lauer had NACO series training, but he did not complete the review process. He has used the OCLC software to create naco-like authority records for the local catalog; and he does not always follow local policy to create authority records for all series.

Some asked how acquisitions would record monographs received in a series. Lauer pointed how that serial records (with cross-references) take care of this.

Pamela reported that the LC-Nairobi office creates many SARs (for a recent year, 82 new and 28 modified), and they would be following LC policy.

Kagan said that a petition was being circulated, and this decision should be reversed.

Lauer noted that the University of Wisconsin did not file series added entry cards in pre-computer days, and this was only occasionally an inconvenience for users. Gentner said that the British Library also did not list under series; and he noted that the series title would still be keyword searchable.

Limb said that as a scholar, he used series. Someone commented on series as a way to locate related material. Goral reported helping users with only a series citation. Malanchuk reported that the University of Florida staff was opposed to the change.

There were many comments on the process and apparent lack of consultation. Several noted that no one came from the LC cataloging division. (ALC chair L. Olson admitted that a planned letter to Barbara Tillich did not get sent.)

Lauer felt that the LC decision, but not the timing, had merit; and he did not want a resolution coming from this meeting. ALC chair Olson reported that a resolution would be prepared for the Business Meeting.

7. Changing Nature of the Catalog (& LCSH): Calhoun, Mann, et al.
[Summaries and notes follow in Appendix B, C, & D.]
Discussion opened with Walsh expressing her opposition to the business model being imposed. Lauer then attempted a brief summary of handout, which was pulled from L. Olson mailing of April 28.

Olson agreed with Mann that the Calhoun report seemed to be an attempt to kill the catalog.

Goral reported that University of California librarians were upset by the 79-page report prepared mostly by administrators. Limb noted that more flexible interfaces make full cataloging data more valuable, as it gets retrieved in innovative ways.

Lauer: the catalog never was the universal access mode that these reports describe as being replaced by Google et al. Book stores, colleagues, and handouts always played a role.

Finnegan noted that local systems often end up being a waste of money. As the editor of Anthropological Literature, he noted that the descriptors used by the competing Anthropological Index (of the Royal Anthropological Society) often link to very different materials. Multiple approaches are not bad.

Walsh commented on the bizarre results with keywords, citing Distant Mirror.

Olson noted that with new media, summaries are displayed more prominently. People want to search multiple systems.

Riley: a business model would point LC towards cost recovery though some value-added services.

Lauer noted the closing of departmental libraries suggests that further cuts in academic support for libraries are coming. We need ideas on what they can stop doing and what new tasks we could assume. As a way to save money, libraries should classify more series as sets, with analytics. Rather than do incomplete cataloging with “core” records, the acquisitions record should be regarded as sufficient for circulating a book. Adding subjects should be regarded as a useful enhancement, similar to adding tables of contents or updating subjects (e.g., from Zaire to Congo). To save reshelving funds, put low use titles directly into compact storage, with classification schemes used only for subject access (and not location).

Several argued strongly that LC as a national library should be making our work easier and not dumping more work on other libraries.

Goral and others decried the dumbing down of records. Finnegan: the world is complex; students need to be pushed to work harder (Possible response to inane query: You are not ready to do research on this topic.); and complex rules do make specialists necessary.

Conteh-Morgan said we should try to understand better how our current users do things and explore ways of matching what they need and want.

Summary: No one was comfortable with abandoning LCSH [though the chair was the only one engaged in SACO & fully aware of the time involved in maintaining the current system].
Chair noted that automated classification might work for collection of 150,000 titles [but not foreign language titles].

Meeting adjourned at noon, with no other reports or announcements. [See Appendix E for CC:AAM report.]

APPENDIX A
The Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Announces
the Library of Congress's Decision to
Cease Creating Series Authority Records as Part of Library of Congress Cataloging
(April 20, 2006)

The Library of Congress has determined that it will cease to provide controlled series access in the bibliographic records that its catalogers produce. Its catalogers will cease creating series authority records (SARs). The Library considered taking this step over a decade ago, but decided against it at that time because of some of the concerns raised about the impact this would have. The environment has changed considerably since then--indexing and key word access are more powerful and can provide adequate access via series statements provided only in the 490 field of the bibliographic record. We recognize that there are still some adverse impacts, but they are mitigated when the gains in processing time are considered.

As the Library was considering introducing this change, it was heavily swayed by the number of records that included series statements. Using statistics for the most recent year with full output of records appearing in the LC Database (fiscal year 2004) gives a sense of the impact on the cataloging workload:

Total monograph records created: 344,362
Total with series statements: 82,447
Total SARs created: 8,770 (by LC catalogers); 9,453 (by Program for Cooperative Cataloging participants)

As a result of the Library's decision, the following explains what catalogers will and will not do, related to series.

What LC catalogers will do:

• Create a separate bibliographic record for all resources with distinctive titles published as parts of series (monographic series and multipart monographs).
• Give series statements in 490 0 fields.
• Classify separately each volume (i.e., assign call number and subject headings appropriate to the specific topic of the volume).
(Imported copy cataloging records will have series access points removed and series statements changed to 490 0.)

What LC catalogers will not do:

! Create new SARs
! Modify existing SARs to update data elements or LC’s treatment decisions
! Consult and follow treatment in existing SARs
! Update existing collected set records
! Change 4XX/8XX fields in completed bibliographic records when updating
those records for other reasons

The Library's rationale includes:
(1) Eliminates cost of constructing unique headings; searching to determine the existence of an SAR; creating SARs; and adjusting 8XX on existing bibliographic records.
(2) Maintains current level of subject access.
(3) In some instances, increases access because more titles will be classified separately
(4) Maintains current level of descriptive access other than series. Uncontrolled series
access will remain available through keyword searches.

The Library will be working with affected stakeholder organizations--OCLC, RLG, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and the larger library community to mitigate as much as possible the impact of this change.

The Library will implement this change on May 1, 2006. The Cataloging Policy and Support Office is revising affected documentation to be reissued to reflect these decisions.

APPENDIX B
The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
prepared for the Library of Congress by Karen Calhoun.
Final Report: March 17, 2006
www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf

BLUEPRINT FOR THE CATALOG (p. 16-20) [abbreviated by JL]
1. Define the Community to Be Served; 2. Choose a Strategic Option;
3. Prepare for Linkages In and Out of the Catalog and/or ILS

4. Innovate and Reduce Costs
4.1 Obtain Metadata [and use with as little modification as possible]
4.1.1 Simplify catalog records to a set of basic elements to support discovery, browsing, identification, delivery, resource sharing, linking, and inventory control
4.2 Support Browsing and Collocation
4.2.1 Use classification data to cluster catalog data for browsing by subject [13: Chandler & LeBlanc at http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/BSTF/Final.pdf; can be used to represent the holdings of an undergraduate collection of approximately 150,000 titles]
4.2.2 Explore automatic classification
4.2.3 Abandon the attempt to do comprehensive subject analysis manually with LCSH in favor of subject keywords; urge LC to dismantle LCSH [14; Gross & Taylor 2005 note that controlled vocabulary does improve keyword results; TOCs also improve keyword results]
4.2.4 Encourage research and development in automatic subject analysis, including ways to reuse legacy data containing LCSH headings to support automatic subject analysis
4.2.5 Explore new ways to manage vocabulary for the names of places
4.2.6 Support experimentation with FRBR and urge vendors and library service ...
4.2.7 Encourage the review of developments in other disciplines ...
4.2.8, .10 & .12 Encourage research and development ...
4.2.9 Continue and expand participation in name authority control cooperative programs
4.2.11 Encourage a collaborative cost-benefit analysis of series authority control; determine who needs controlled vocabulary for series headings and how/where to provide it at substantially less cost.

4.3 Streamline Workflows
4.3.4 Shun workflows that create or perpetuate processing backlogs
4.3.5 Define fast turnaround and delivery of library materials to users as the standard of quality service, not the fullness of catalog data
4.4 Adopt Standards and Best Practices
5. Improve the User Experience
5.1 Enrich the catalog with services (e.g., “more like this,” “get it” options, new booklists, etc.), and data (cover art, reviews, TOCs)
5.2 Enable much better browsing and organization of large retrieval sets
5.3 Enable best-match retrieval (no search dead ends)
5.4 Provide relevancy ranking of search results
...
6. Make Good Decisions; 7. Market the Library; 8. Manage Change;
9. Develop, Retrain, and Recruit; 10. Find Funding and Partners

APPENDIX C
A Critical Review [of the Calhoun Report]
by Thomas Mann
Prepared for AFSCME 2910 (The Library of Congress Professional Guild)
April 3, 2006
http://www.guild2910.org/AFSCMECalhounReviewREV.pdf

Summary: According to the Calhoun report, library operations that are not digital, that do not result in resources that are remotely accessible, that involve professional human judgement or expertise, or that require conceptual categorization and standardization rather than relevance ranking of keywords, do not fit into its proposed “leadership” strategy. This strategy itself, however, is based on an inappropriate business model – and a misrepresentation of that business model to begin with. The Calhoun report draws unjustified conclusions about the digital age, inflates wishful thinking, fails to make critical distinctions, and disregards (as well as mischaracterizes) an alternative “niche” strategy for research libraries, to promote scholarship (rather than increase “market position”). Its recommendations to eliminate Library of Congress Subject Headings, and to use “fast turnaround” time as the “gold standard” in cataloging, are particularly unjustified, and would have serious negative consequences for the capacity of research libraries to promote scholarly research.

APPENDIX D
University of California Libraries. Bibliographic Services Task Force. 2005.
“ Rethinking how we provide bibliographic services for the University of California.”
http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/BSTF/Final.pdf

SELECTED/CATALOGING RECOMMENDATIONS (p. 4-5; and 22ff)

III. Adopting New Cataloging Practices
III.1 Rearchitect cataloging workflow [creating single UC enterprise]
...
III.2. Select the appropriate metadata scheme.
III.2a: Use level of description and schema (DC, LOM, VRA Core, etc,) appropriate to the bibliographic resource. Don’t apply MARC, AACR2, and LCSH to everything.
III.2b: Consider the value of implementing the FAST syntax with special attention to ‘place’ and ‘time periods’ in order to support faceted browsing in those categories.
III.2c: Consider using controlled vocabularies only for name, uniform title, date, and place, and abandoning the use of controlled vocabularies [LCSH, MESH, etc] for topical subjects in bibliographic records. Consider whether automated enriched metadata such as TOC, indexes can become surrogates for subject headings and classification for retrieval.
III.2d: In allocating resources to descriptive and subject metadata creation, consider giving preference to those items that are completely undiscoverable without it, such as images, music, numeric databases, etc. Consider whether automated metadata creation techniques can be used for all textual materials.
III.3 Manually enrich metadata in important areas
III.3a: Enhance name, main title, series titles, and uniform titles for prolific authors in music, literature, and special collections.
III.3b: Implement structured serials holdings format.

III.4 Automate Metadata Creation
III.4a: Encourage the creation of metadata by vendors, and its ingestion into our catalog as early as possible in the process.
III.4b: Import enhanced metadata whenever, wherever it is available from vendors and other sources.
III.4c: Automate the addition of geographic data into our catalog to support existing services, and to support emerging services.
III.4d: Change the processing workflow from “Acquire-Catalog-Put on Shelf” to “Acquire-Put on Shelf with existing metadata-Begin ongoing metadata enhancement process through iterative automated query of metadata sources.”
III.4e: Add enriched content such as Tables of Contents, cover art, publisher promotional blurbs, content excerpts (print, audio or video), and bibliographies. Build retrieval, relevance, and navigation services on top of this content.

APPENDIX E
CC:AAM report (San Antonio, Jan. 22, 2006)
by Robert Lesh
(April 11, 2006)

RDA review process:
One of the major focus areas of CC:AAM is the drafting of the new cataloging code, Resource Description and Access (RDA), by the Joint Steering Committee. The CC:AAM liaison to CC:DA, Keiko Suzuki, reported on that committee’s work in reviewing RDA, pt. 1. At our June, 2005, meeting, CC:AAM voted to form an RDA task force to review the drafts from the point of view of the five area studies groups that we represent. The task force, chaired by Hideyuki Morimoto, will gather the feedback of the twelve members of the task force, formulate a written report, and present our findings to CC:DA, in cooperation with Keiko Suzuki. At least two members from each of CC:AAM’s five study areas sit on the task force.

PCC Program:
CC:AAM has organized a panel discussion on the Program for Cooperative Cataloging to be presented on Saturday, June 24, 2006 in New Orleans, 8:00-10:00 AM. The presentation has been approved by the ALCTS Program Committee and has the silent sponsorship of PCC. The committee is also searching for other co-sponsors. The program will consist of four panelists: James Lin for East Asia (on SACO), Joyce Bell for the Middle East (on NACO and the funnel project), Andrea Stamm for Africa (on BIBCO), and Steve Shadle for all studies areas (on CONSER). The panel will be moderated by Ana Lupe Cristán. Each of the panelists will speak for about ten minutes, leaving the majority of the time for discussion and audience participation. The goal of the presentation is to encourage interest and participation in PCC. The program will be advertised through the area studies programs, the co-sponsoring organization(s), and by word of mouth.

Unicode:
CC:AAM has a long-term concern in promoting Unicode to promote the use of traditional scripts in online bibliographic and authority records. David Nelson reported on his continuing literature survey for Unicode. Shi Deng attended the AVIAC meeting of software vendors and reported no new developments on Unicode. However, we understand that there are vendors working on non-Roman language scripts for commercial distribution, which may not be compatible with North American bibliographic databases.

Other Business:
Several shorter items were covered in the meeting. There is no progress on the DDC proposal for Indonesian provinces. The Islamic law LCSH are currently under review by the MELA Cataloging Committee. Romanization tables for Central Asian languages are in progress and will soon be posted on the LC website. There has been no feedback from the Slavica librarians group for this Romanization. The November, 2005, MELA/ALC joint meeting on communication among area associations was promising, but there were no specifics. Interest was expressed in June, 2005, in Chicago on a critique of LC 670 citations of internet reference sources, and additional volunteers were requested.
Since the CC:AAM meeting time was shortened from three hours to two hours, organizational reports were accepted electronically. Among these were: the area studies organizations, LC, and OCLC. We no longer have an RLG liaison so there was no RLG report.

AFRICANA SUBJECT FUNNEL REPORT
ALC CATALOGING COMMITTEE
Spring 2006

A total of 14 new and 17 revised subject authorities have been submitted to the Library of Congress since the last update (Fall 2005). The proposals originated with Lauer (Michigan State), Janet Stanley (Smithsonian), Shoshana Seidman (Northwestern), and Margaret Hughes (Stanford).

The major achievement of this period was the submission of changes involving the use of Hamitic or Hamites in numerous headings. Some of these revisions, if accepted, will cause changes in another 28 authority records. Another difficult new heading (Oti-Volta languages) was finally submitted. If approved, it will force changes in the BTs (broader terms) of another 19 headings (plus Mooré).

We have implemented a process that has librarians at Northwestern and Stanford submitting headings directly, after vetting through the funnel.

During the months of Oct. 2005-March 2006, 32 headings needing possible attention were added to my review file. Of these, 14 were vetted and submitted to Library of Congress (LC), some directly by Northwestern or Stanford. The backlog continues to grow, but more slowly.

I continue to monitor the Tentative (Unapproved) List for new or revised headings. Sometimes these are not posted early enough to allow comment before approval. The appendix lists the 73 new approved subjects submitted by non-funnel sources, including 29 from LC.

                                                            Joseph J. Lauer; May 3, 2006

APPENDIX: NEW NON-FUNNEL AFRICANA SUBJECT HEADINGS

The Weekly List, Oct. 2005-March 2006, of LC’s Cataloging Policy and Support Office, included the following newly approved headings that came from other sources. Another 20 new Africana headings, submitted by the funnel last September, also appeared on these lists. The submitting library’s MARC21 code appears at the end of each entry (except for those from LC). There were also revised authority records that are not included here.