LC Cataloging Newsline Items of Interest

Here are a few items of interest from the volume 16, no. 4 (June 2008) issue of LC Cataloging Newsline:

LC ENDORSES RECOMMENDATIONS OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WORKING
GROUP ON THE FUTURE OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL

Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum issued the Library of Congress's response to On the Record, the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, on June 1. The working group offers more than 100 specific recommendations, organized under five general recommendations: (1) Increase the efficiency of bibliographic production and maintenance for all libraries through cooperation and sharing; (2) Enhance access to rare, unique, and other special hidden materials; (3) Position our technology for the future; (4) Position our community for the future; (5) Strengthen the library and information science. The Library of Congress embraces the Working Group's recommendations, which were submitted to Dr. Marcum in final form on Jan. 9, 2008, just prior to the American Library Association (ALA) 2008 Midwinter Meeting. Members of the Working Group met with Dr. Marcum and Beacher Wiggins, director for
Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access, on June 6 at the Library of Congress to discuss the Library's response. Members agreed, at Dr. Marcum's request, to continue as informal advisors to the Library as the Library follows up on the recommendations in the report. Dr. Marcum convened the working group in November 2006 to examine the future of bibliographic description in the 21st century. More information on the Working Group, including the Library's response to the report, is available at a special public Website, URL http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future
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JOINT STATEMENT OF U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARIES ON RDA DEVELOPMENT

The Library of Congress has been very active in development of Resource Description and Access, the planned successor to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. Concerns raised by the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control led to a joint meeting of managers of LC and the two other U.S. national libraries, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Agricultural Library (NAL), on March 10, 2008. The representatives of the three national libraries agreed that the development of RDA is an important international initiative that has involved the resources of libraries in many countries for the past several years. The three U.S. national libraries agreed on a joint commitment to the further development and completion of RDA, with decisions on implementation to be made jointly after review and testing of the completed code. The text of the three libraries' joint statement is available online at URL
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographicfuture/news/RDA_Letter_050108.pdf

Representatives of NAL, NLM, and LC met on June 9 to begin to define the scope and nature of the testing of RDA that will be conducted as part of this agreement.
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REPORT OF THE JOINT MEETING OF BIBCO AND CONSER OPERATIONS REPRESENTATIVES HELD MAY 1-2, 2008, AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Operation representatives from BIBCO and CONSER, the two bibliographic record programs of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), held joint and separate meetings May 1-2, 2008.

This report provides highlights from the joint meetings. Summaries of the separate program meetings will be available in the near future.

Update on RDA
The operations representatives were given an update on the April 2008 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) by Barbara Tillett, LC representative to JSC. Many of meeting outcomes reported by Dr. Tillett are posted on the JSC Web site: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/0804out.html Constituent review is expected to take place between August 2008 and October 2008 and an early 2009 release date is still on target. The final online product will include "workflows" that provide simple instructions to walk a cataloger through creating bibliographic and authority records. It will probably be possible for groups such as the PCC to specify guidelines for applying RDA and share this within the online product, but more will be known about this capability as the product nears completion.

Provider Neutral Records for Online Monographs
BIBCO members are considering a new proposal to develop guidelines for online monographs. CONSER members shared their experiences in developing guidelines for provider neutral records for online serials. The provider neutral approach calls for one record to represent the online version of a resource, even if it is delivered simultaneously in several packages. The approach reduces the number of duplicate records in the national database for
essentially the same resource and facilitates local tracking of resources. BIBCO members agreed to form a group to determine requirements, timeline, and steps for implementing a policy for provider neutral record for online monographs.

PCC Guidelines for Cataloging Integrating Resources
CONSER and BIBCO representatives discussed the 2008 revision of Integrating Resources: A Cataloging Manual http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/irman.pdf
The manual is used by members of both programs to create records for integrating resources and share record maintenance. The 2008 revision reflects new coding practices for integrating resources and the current WorldCat cataloging environment of PCC libraries since RLG and OCLC merged in 2006. Representatives discussed potential guidelines including advice on the number of records needed for different language versions of an online integrating resource.

LC Response to the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control
Beacher Wiggins provided an update on LC's response to On the Record: Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control http://www.loc.gov/bibliographicfuture/news/

(LC Cataloging Newsline)

xISSN Web Service

xISBN is now being joined by xISSN, a new Web service. With this service you can supply an ISSN, and find out about any predecessor, successor, and alternate ISSNs and titles, and find the electronic ISSN for a print title or vice versa.

This is a web service which can be integrated into library applications, websites, link resolvers, cataloging tools, and so on. There is also a pretty nifty human-ready demonstration interface known as Title History.

http://xissn.worldcat.org/xissnadmin/index.htm

(Lorcan Demsey's weblog)

Metalogue Blog

Metalogue is a forum for sharing thoughts on all things related to knowledge organization by and for libraries, hosted by Karen Calhoun, Vice President, WorldCat and Metadata Services for OCLC. Karen is joined often by friends and colleagues from all over the globe, who contribute perspectives and experiences about the current and future state of cataloguing and metadata.

http://community.oclc.org/metalogue/

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

Future of Cataloging: A PALINET Symposium

MP3s and slides from The Future of Cataloging: A PALINET Symposium are now available at:

http://www.palinet.org/futurecatsym.aspx

The talks were:

* Keynote Address, Karen Calhoun "Traveling Through Transitions in Technical Services: From Surviving to Thriving"

* Response to Keynote, Panel Discussion / Beth Picknally Camden

* Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Current Development and Implementation Plans for Resource Description and Access (RDA) / John Attig

* On the Record, One View of the Future--Library of Congress Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control / Nancy Fallgren

* Making Special Collections Not So Special? The Implications for Archives and Special Collections of the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control / Christine Di Bella

* High Quality Discovery in a Web 2.0 World: Architectures for Next Generation Catalogs / John Mark Ockerbloom

* Summary & Closing Remarks / Dina Giambi

(Catalogablog)

On Descript Blog

On Descript is a forum dedicated to all things description in Library and Information Science (LIS). Here, you'll find information on subjects like cataloging, indexing, abstracting and the foundations of description practices in LIS. Please share your ideas!

http://ondescript.blogspot.com/

(Catalogablog)

Behind the Scenes in Technical Services

What happens before a book, CD or other item makes it to the library shelves? Take a fun, tongue-in-cheek, behind-the-scenes look at the Arlington Heights (Ill.) Public Library's Technical Services Department.

http://www.ahml.info/vlog/default.asp?ID=49

Blog for Library Technology

"[BLT] Blog for Library Technology is published by the University of Michigan Library's Library Information Technology division. We'll talk about technological innovations we're developing in the U-M library. We welcome your comments and feedback!"

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/blt/

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

"How to Survive as a New Serialist" NASIGuide

A NASIGuide on How to Survive as a New Serialist by Glenda Griffin is now available on the NASIGWeb Publications page:

http://www.nasig.org/publications_guides.cfm

Starting with a definition of what, exactly, is a serialist, the guide offers tips to new serialists on everything from identifying current training needs and finding support to locating information on the latest cutting edge developments. Includes links to library organization and association Web sites (yes, NASIG is in there!), conferences, online training, discussion groups, online resources, and more. Packed with useful information for serialists new and not-so-new!

(NASIG-L e-list)

Response to "On the Record" Report

Deanna Marcum has released the response to On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.

http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/LCWGRptResponse_DM_053008.pdf

(AUTOCAT e-list)

Tag of the Month

Need help understanding MARC tags? Turn to Tag of the Month. This helpful resource features a new topic every month, including a description of the tag's uses and working examples.

The Tag of the Month page also features links to other helpful cataloging resources, including the online version of Understanding MARC Bibliographic: Machine-Readable Cataloging, the definitive book on MARC, co-authored by the Library of Congress and Follett Software.

http://www.follettsoftware.com/sub/tag_of_the_month/

Part of Follett Software's website, along with "Ms. MARC."

(Planet Cataloging)

OCLC Implements MARC Changes

On Sunday, June 1, 2008 OCLC implemented changes related to the OCLC-MARC Update 2008 in Connexion browser and client. These changes are based on MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings Formats, Updates No. 7 (dated October 2006), MARC Code List changes and additions and a few changes suggested by users and OCLC staff. For complete details, see OCLC Technical Bulletin 255 at:

http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/tb/255/default.htm

Changes include, but are not limited to:
--Addition of codes from the IAML list of musical composition codes in 047.
--Addition of $j (Relator term) in 111, 611, 711 and 811.
--Addition of 034 (Coded Cartographic Mathematical Data) in Authorities.
--Addition of field 506 (Restrictions on Access Note) in Holdings records.
--New country (Ctry) and geographic area (field 043) codes for Kosovo.
--New bibliographic indexes: Language of Cataloging Description (040 $b) and Access Restrictions (506 $a and $f).
--New authority index: Cartographic Data index (034 $d, $e, $f, $g and $z).

New indexes and codes will be available in Connexion client dropdowns when the next version of the client is released. In client 2.10, new indexes may be searched manually in the command line and new codes may be entered manually.

Jay Weitz
Senior Consulting Database Specialist
OCLC Online Computer Library Center

(OCLC-CAT e-list)

Statement of International Cataloguing Principles Available for Review

This is a reminder announcement that the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles developed by the five IFLA Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code is now available for worldwide review and comment at:

http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/icc/principles_review_200804.htm

A vote form is also available there and can be used by anyone to indicate whether they approve the statement or not and to make comments. The form can be printed out, filled in, and faxed, or it can be filled in electronically and sent as an e-mail attachment.

The form and any comments should be sent by e-mail to Barbara Tillett, Chair of the IME ICC Planning Committee, at btil@loc.gov or by fax to +1-202-707-6629.

The deadline for comments is 30 June 2008.

(AUTOCAT e-list)