SCATNews
Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing

Number 9,
January 1998
ISSN: 1022-9841

NEWS FROM THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE SECTION ON CATALOGUING

Report on the Meetings held by the Standing Committee on Cataloguing during the Copenhagen Conference
by Suzanne Jouguelet,
Out-going Secretary of the Committee

The Committee on Cataloguing met on August 30 and September 5, 1997 during the Copenhagen conference.

1. Reports/Announcements

SCATNews

Ingrid Parent agrees to keep the same system one more year.

She accepts to stay the editor but she asks for input to the newsletter.

Section on Cataloguing's Open Programme

• Report on the IFLA study on the Functional requirements for bibliographic records, by Olivia Madison.
  
• Danbib - a user friendly union catalogue, by Troels Andreassen and Tommy Schomacker
  
• Cataloguing for the 21st century, by Michael Gorman

Section on Cataloguing's Workshop

The program was overbooked, indicating a great interest in the topic.

There is a lot of activity across several sectors related to the development and use of communication formats. A variety of communication formats will continue to be used by libraries and information centres to code, manipulate, and exchange bibliographic data. The challenge will be to ensure on-going compatibility and the development of satisfactory conversion programmes and crosswalks between various formats as necessary.

UBCIM report
by Marie-France Plassard

• The two major points are Unimarc and authority control
  
• Results of the elections to the Permanent Unimarc Commitee:
  
  Mirna Willer, from Croatia, Chair
  Brian Holt, from G.B. (British Library), Secretary

An important new development is that a Concise Unimarc is on the IFLANet site since August 15.

ISBD(ER) for Electronic Resources

ISBD Review group

It will examine the interrelations within ISBDs, especially with ISBD(ER).

2. Current projects

Study on Functional requirements for bibliographic records

She gives some suggestions:

• Effect on national bibliographic agencies, individual libraries, cataloguing codes and guidelines
  
• For example, the concise ISBD project had been postponed -- do we need to consider it again?
  
• ISBD's as a whole: see how the recommendations impact.
  
• Authority control, which is not in the report, is obviously a next step.
  
• How do we make our recommendations internationally known?
  
• The Study was formally approved by the Standing Committee. Saur will be approached to publish the Study.
  

Anonymous Classics

• Despite the delays, phase 1 is nearly completed. The document will be sent to Marie-France Plassard at the end of September, for publication on demand.
  
• Phase 2 is more problematic (Latin America-Asia) and will require more contacts with these geographic areas.

Form and Structure of Corporate Headings

International Conference on National Bibliographic Services

The aim is to review and update the 1977 Paris recommendations in the light of new developments. Besides the Keynote speaker's paper (Marcelle Beaudiquez) there will be papers about coverage, data requirements, distribution and exchange, partnership...

3. Future projects for the Section

Guidelines for authority and reference entries (GARE)

By Christmas, a new draft document will circulate among the members of the group. The group has agreed on a single document, comprehensive and flexible (covering all materials, music, electronic resources, legal works...); giving examples...

Study of OPACs display

She has sent messages to the other sections (Bibliography, Classification, Information Technology) to designate a representative. Literature searches are needed (end of the year).

A proposal will be prepared in November, for submission to the Professional Board.

The end of the study could coincide with a final report in Bangkok.

ISBD(S)

Work for two years. Input from the Section on Serials and the ISSN International Centre will be needed.

4. Medium Term Programme

5. Election of officers

6. Amsterdam Conference (1998) 16 to 21 August

• A paper about the use of cataloguing by reference services (exploitation, improvements...).
  
• Aftermath of the AACR2 conference (Toronto-October) including the national revision process
  
• A paper from the Netherlands: How networking activities improve service to users. Research by Ton Heijligers.
  

Workshop

• The SC agrees with the idea of a practical workshop on ISBD (ER). John Byrum will plan it.

7. Bangkok Conference (1999)

3 possible themes:

• Training in bibliographic access issues
• Multilingual-multicharacter issues
• OPACs study

STANDING COMMITTEE MEMBERS

The members of the IFLA Standing committee on Cataloguing for 1997-1999 are as follows:

Corresponding Members

Honorary Advisors

Observer

ISBD(S)

ISBD(S)

This review will take two years to complete, and will consider several issues related to seriality.

Other Members of the Review Group are:

In addition, resource persons have been identified from the Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Review Group is also interested in appointing some corresponding members who would be willing to provide comments on revised drafts as they are produced. If you would like to be considered as a corresponding member, please contact Ingrid Parent at (819) 953-0291 (fax) or by email at ingrid.parent@nlc-bnc.ca

LIBRARY REPORTS

CORE-LEVEL CATALOGING
by Beacher J E Wiggins,
Library of Congress

On May 28, 1997, the Library of Congress reached consensus to adopt the core-level bibliographic record as the base record for the Cataloging Directorate and the Serial Record Division. The decision capped a year of deliberations and experimentation with core-level cataloging. From April through October 1996, the Cataloging Directorate conducted a Core-Level Cataloging Experiment, designed in consultation with the Cataloging Policy and Support Office and the Library's reference staff, which indicated that productivity was higher for core-level cataloging than for full-level over a wide range of formats, languages, subjects, and scripts. In addition, the Serial Record Division conducted a core cataloging project for serials from June 1996 through May 1997. The director for cataloging presented the Library's decision to several groups at the 1997 American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco, to generally positive reactions. Via the CONSERlist electronic discussion list, the serials cataloging community considered a proposal in summer 1997 that all new serial records be coded as core-level, and the CONSER Operations Committee will continue discussion of the proposal in spring 1998.

AACR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, ACTION
Marg Stewart National Library of Canada

The International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR was held October 23-25, 1997 in Toronto, Canada. A number of actions and recommendations resulted from the Conference and the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR is now charged with the establishment of an action plan to be implemented in conjunction with the Committee of Principals for AACR. Immediately following the Conference, therefore, at its annual meeting, the Joint Steering Committee discussed the results of the Conference. The action items listed below have been identified for immediate implementation and a more complete summary of the Conference results will follow. In addition, the Conference Proceedings will be published jointly by the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association and the Library Association under the editorship of Jean Weihs.

The following action items have been developed by JSC from the priorities identified during the International Conference.

Items for Immediate Action by JSC:

• Pursue the recommendation that a data modeling technique be used to provide a logical analysis of the principles and structures that underlie AACR.
  
• Create a list of the principles of AACR2.
  
• Formalize the recommendations on seriality endorsed during the Conference and introduce them into the rule revision process.
  
• Solicit a proposal to revise rule 0.24 to advance the discussion on the primacy of intellectual content over physical format.
  
• Maintain an AACR Web site.
  
• Publicize and reaffirm, on the AACR Web site, JSC policies, procedures and activities as well as the current processes for submitting rule revision proposals emanating from within or outside AACR author countries.
  
• Develop a mission statement for JSC.
  
• Determine if there are any existing surveys on the extent of use of AACR2 outside the Anglo-American community and if no such survey exists, conduct such a survey.
  

This list will be available at the http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm --Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR

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