PCC BIBCO-at-Large—Summary

ALA Midwinter, Seattle
Sunday January 21, 2007

The BIBCO-at-Large group began their meeting immediately following the CONSER-at-Large session in this same room. It's a convenience so that the reporters from OCLC and the PCC Standing Committees serve the needs of both BIBCO and CONSER attendees simultaneously. The sign-in sheets held 53 names.

Update from the ALCTS Task-Force on Non-English Access

Rebecca Mugridge (Penn State U), PCC Chair-elect attended a meeting on January 20, representing the PCC. The Task Force’s report includes nine recommendations. The audience at the Saturday morning meeting had given comments and had asked about the need for the Task Force’s work. The TF offered many reasons. Ann Della Porta (LC) reported to the TF about LC's policy of using 4xx and 7xx fields for nonroman scripts rather than 880 fields. Della Porta was scheduled to report also to ACIG on Sunday afternoon. The ALCTS TF will sift through comments on their report, correct factual errors, publish the revised version, and appoint additional task forces to continue development on each issue.

OCLC Update, Glenn Patton (OCLC)

The OCLC Update Presentation offers a more complete treatment of the issues summarized below.

Integrating the RLG Union Catalog

OCLC has begun the process of merging the RLG Union Catalog into WorldCat. The RUC is a clustered database and the first stage of the merging is to process the primary cluster records against WorldCat. New records are added if no match is found. Some WorldCat records may be replaced if the incoming record has non-roman script, data too valuable to lose. By January 21, 2007, about 18 million of the 50 million primary cluster member records had been processed in 10 days of loading. OCLC will add holdings data and Institution Records (representing individual institutions' versions of those records) later in the spring.

Authority history

OCLC has made available a new feature, the Authority History functionality, allowing searchers to view superseded versions of records for LC name and subject authorities. It became available in the Connexion browser in November and in the client version 1.70 in early December. To support this functionality, OCLC has merged its existing history file (dating from 2001) with RLG's much more comprehensive one (dating back to the mid-1980s) to make a complete file.

Upcoming Connexion enhancements

Look for Institution Records, SCIPIO, and authority generation via Z39.50 in Connexion 2.0, scheduled for June 2007

Transitioning NACO activity

Patton called to mind the refrain often sung by his colleague Ed Glazier, encouraging NACO contributors with Authority records in the RLG save file to contribute them soon, because they won't go anywhere when the RLG database is integrated fully into WorldCat. There are several hundred in the file, perhaps even more than a thousand languishing in the save file. NACO users will need OCLC NACO authorizations

Transitioning BIBCO activity

BIBCO activity will require transition from RLG to OCLC as well. BIBCO members using RLG will be required to apply to OCLC for National Level Enhance status. This step has been helpful to orient newcomers to the WorldCat/Connexion cataloging environment. OCLC will expedite the review process for new National Level Enhance participants. If BIBCO members plan to batchload their PCC bib records (a practice more common among RLG than OCLC BIBCO institutions), they should discuss it with their OCLC batchloading contact.

The group posed questions for Patton:

Q: How does OCLC handle OCLC/RLG duplicates?
A: OCLC has made significant enhancements to matching algorithms but no automated process is perfect so some duplicates may result.

Q: Is the Authority History feature available for series?
A: Yes

Q: What is the estimated time for loading the remaining RLG records into WorldCat?
A: OCLC hopes to load all by the end of March 2007.

Q: Is there a plan to map of institutional symbols and codes as records migrate to WorldCat from RLG?
A: RLG Library Identifiers have been mapped to OCLC symbols (with the help of the libraries involved if necessary). RLIN record IDs will be retained when institution records are created.

PCC Standing Committee on Automation--Gary Charbonneau (Indiana)
(taken directly from the SCA 4th quarter 2006 report)

The Monographic Aggregator Task Group has submitted its MARC Record Guide for Monograph Aggregator Vendors based on comments received on the draft version, which had been previously posted to the PCC web site. The task group, consisting of chair Kate Harcourt (Columbia), Becky Culbertson (UC San Diego) and Kit Herlihy (California State San Marcos), is now ready to be discharged with thanks. However, Kate and Becky will be performing one additional service, and that is to make a brief presentation on the guide to the ALCTS Publisher-Vendor-Library Relations Open Forum in Seattle.

The Task Group on Normalization has submitted the final version of its report, entitled Authority File Comparison Rules. This task group is also ready to be discharged with thanks. Task group members are: Gary Strawn (Northwestern University), chair; Tatiana Barr (University of Florida); Robert Bremer (OCLC), Larry Dixson (Library of Congress); Helen Gbala; and Ed Glazier.

As both of its active task groups have now completed their work and as the committee has received no additional assignments from PCC, the committee will not meet at Midwinter in Seattle.

PCC Standing Committee on Training--Caroline Miller (UCLA)

The online course "Introduction to SACO" being prepared by John Mitchell (LC) is slated for completion by June 2007.

A few additional revisions will be added to the SACO Participants’ Manual. It will be published online in the near future, and will not be a print publication.

The TG developing the ALCTS/PCC "Fundamentals of LC Classification" course did a run-through on Friday, and thanked the University of Washington for hosting the session. They will analyze the results on evaluations to revise the course materials.

The TG developing the ALCTS/PCC "Fundamentals of Series" course met on Friday as well. Both groups will lead ALCTS-sponsored preconferences at ALA Annual in Washington, DC.

In late October 2007, members of each TG will lead an Instructor Development Seminar (IDS) to equip those who will volunteer as trainers for future sessions. Prospective trainers will be encouraged to attend the preconference as part of the preparation to conduct classroom instruction. These courses are designed for any library staff interested in the topic, and neither the training sessions nor the instructor positions are limited to PCC partner libraries.

The Continuing Education Training Materials group (CETM) is charged with monitoring the non-PCC training manuals and assembling groups to update courses as needed. Two such groups are active now, updating the "LCSH" and the "Rules & Tools" training manuals.

Standing Committee on Standards—Mechael Charbonneau (Indiana), PCC Chair

The PoCo and the PCC Steering Committee considered recommendations of the previous SCS chair 1) to look at the committee’s charge, and 2) to look for representation from various areas of the library community. Although no chair has been named, Mecheal Charbonneau has appointed Peter Fletcher (Tulane) as the CC:DA liaison from the SCS. Charbonneau met with continuing and new members of the SCS at ALA MW to identify priorities. The immediate needs are:

1. to review the SCS charge and recommend needed changes
2. to draft a charge for a Series Task Group (Mechael will contact volunteers).

Displays for Records with Vernacular and Romanized Scripts—Gary Strawn (Northwestern), David Bucknum (LC), David Williamson (LC)

The goal is to develop tools to help catalogers and systems provide improved displays for records with vernacular and Romanized scripts. Specifically, they have been developing applications to work with Voyager to:

1. pair romanized and vernacular fields in bib records by reordering the fields using a subfield $6
2. read romanized fields in bib records and to provide paired fields in the vernacular using a transliteration utility
3. read the romanized headings in bib records, search and find the authority, then add the vernacular form from the associated 880 as a reference in the authority.

Gary Strawn's presentation demonstrated a new feature for the Cataloger's Toolkit allowing users to switch back and forth between vernacular and Romanized versions of bibliographic records or fields within a record. The current version offers the choice of eight different languages. Romanization tables run behind the scenes to make these changes possible. Users can adapt the process to their own local needs.

David Bucknum (LC)--LC currently catalogs its nonroman serials in OCLC, and its nonroman monographs in RLG. The problems with this approach are that it requires catalogers to use more than one cataloging client, the bib records must be imported daily into the local LC database, and the bulk imports must be monitored for data integrity. Hence, LC is looking for a more efficient method of cataloging records with nonroman characters in the future, and plans to develop an application similar to Gary Strawn's that automatically pairs fields and provides a transliteration utility. LC also plans to develop additional language modules to meet its needs (e.g., HAPY). The application will allow LC to test both OCLC and Voyager to find the best fit for LC's cataloging environment. Cataloging practice and policy will need to be addressed before any such tool could be implemented fully. There are differences in practices among teams at LC working with nonroman scripts that must be resolved. LC plans to address the HAPY language records first, and then examine the feasibility of working with the CJK languages.

David Williamson (LC)—Williamson concentrated his work on nonroman characters in authorities. Since it’s possible to generate an authority record from a bibliographic record, why not use this capability with nonroman scripts? His presentation was a video showing a sequence of actions happening in the system as the program worked its magic. It is a very quick process for a machine to find a heading in a bib record and to add a nonroman cross reference to an authority record. This program is just in the work file of Voyager now, and it hasn't been applied to the reference evaluation part of authority record generation yet. Although LC hasn't decided yet if they will employ this tool, its success shows that automation can help make cataloging of nonroman language materials more efficient. David Williamson has tested this new tool on all JACKPHY languages. It is just a prototype at this time. All of these tools give us a chance to consider improvements and to partner with groups such as the Non-English Access Group. Williamson's presentation is not included in this BIBCO-at-large summary.

Q: When will this tool be available?
A: LC must decide on policies regarding the inclusion of nonroman script in authority records. Then it would be possible to populate records in the LC database.

Q: Is this available in Voyager:
A: Gary's toolkit is available in Voyager.

Q: Can the vernacular characters added to authority records be indexed for retrieval?
A: Yes, the LC Voyager system can index for 4xx and 8xx 880s. Two test records illustrate different treatments.

Q: Will an 880 field in a bib record become a 7xx field in an authority record?
A: This is another policy issue to be determined before this new tool can be implemented.

Q: More questions on this same theme: Does LC provide a 7xx field for the provisional form of a heading and also for the simplified form of the heading? Can the system allow two different 7xx headings for Cyrillic names, since they can be represented in two different forms?
A: Yes, these are the issues.

Q: Aren’t there still problems with Unicode in Voyager?
A: Yes. Voyager uses Unicode values for sorting, and this is not logical to Chinese characters. RLG has more instances of spaces between characters than OCLC. Voyager's matching processes see the OCLC and RLG representations of the same heading as two different strings.

Q: Could these new tools take the alternate forms of a heading found in bib records created under different standards and put the variants into the authority record instead of the bib record?
A: Work with authority records will be something for the future, since the LC migration from RLG is a higher priority now.

Comment from the audience: There are different practices within different language groups. One university in the PCC includes nonroman characters in Cyrillic and Arabic records, (and possibly Hebraic), and wants to be able to code them as BIBCO records. They would like the PCC to adopt a policy that is more uniform across languages to enrich all records similarly.

Reply from the auduence: The PCC needs to consider these things. Once a practice can be applied to authority records, can it be done in bib records as well?

PCC/LC Coop activities--Carolyn Sturtevant (LC) The BIBCO-At-Large presentation is supplemented with the notes below.

LC's Acquisition and Bibliographic Access (ABA) Reorganization planning continues, awaiting full administrative approval and funding in the LC budget before any changes can be enacted. LC is among the government agencies working under a continuing resolution this fiscal year so far. In the reorganized ABA, the Cooperative Cataloging Team is likely to be grouped with the current Instructional Design and Training Division (IDTD). The newly formed units will have new names and leadership.

In the Library Services Strategic Plan that is being crafted, there is a group assigned to focus on measuring effectiveness of services to publishers, universities, and users. There is an emphasis on accountability, and on gauging user satisfaction with products and services. The new performance assessment rating tool will undoubtedly be applied to PCC programs when it is adopted.

Staff change: Tricia Van Ryn has left the Coop Team because she will be working in the new National AV Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA when it opens. Veteran LC cataloger, Roberto Sicre, is on detail in Coop Team. CDS has no additional staff since their recent numerous retirements, but we learned that they may be able to increase their staff in the future. CPSO staff may have changes in coming months.

The Library of Congress' Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) website has been redesigned and is found using a new uniform resource locator.

· It is organized by topics of interest rather than by divisions or offices in the Library of Congress organization chart
· It replaces the current Cataloging, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and Acquisitions web sites, and also includes links to cataloging and acquisitions-related material on other Web sites maintained by the Library.
· LC web developers welcome comments from users.
· PCC pages are in line to be refurbished, but we can't offer a timeline. Select the link "Cooperative Programs" to access the PCC Web site and its component programs NACO, SACO, BIBCO, and CONSER.
· The PCC Statistics page carries monthly reports allowing contributors to monitor the number of records sent in each component program
· Selecting the link for "Products for Purchase" takes viewers to the current CDS site, not yet redesigned.
· Choose either "General, Descriptive Cataloging" or "Subject Headings" links that were formerly found on the CPSO Web site.
· Some searches may be redirected automatically to the new Cataloging and Acquisitions home page; others may require users to change bookmarks. The Coop Team will send more information as the transition continues.

Coop Staff did revisions to NACO training materials for OCLC libraries this year. RLG materials were not revised. These issues will prompt further revisions:

LCRI 26.1 4xx qualifiers for acronyms if needed to break conflicts
Migration from RLIN to OCLC for NACO contributions
Possible changes in DCM Z1 with regard to special treatment of some libraries' NARs)

It's likely that the Coop Team will host a Train-the-NACO-Trainer session at LC in Washington, DC this calendar year. Stay tuned for more details.

CJK NACO Project

Dr. Shuyong Jiang (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) will serve as Funnel Coordinator for this new group, assisted by Ms. Jiping Wu (LC). In their Boston meeting in March, CEAL will have an introductory session about the new CJK NACO Project. New members may be recruited from libraries that did not choose to become separate institutional members of the PCC. Veteran CJK contributors may become involved in the professional activities of the CJK NACO project as opportunities arise to develop documentation and contribute to policy decisions.

BIBCO:

We will seek volunteers to help with revisions to BIBCO materials:

BIBCO Participants' Manual
BIBCO Training Manual
Integrating Resources appendix needs revision for both BIBCO and CONSER needs

• The chair of the Standing Committee on Training has suggested that BIBCO and CONSER documentation be harmonized to decrease the number of practices that are dissimilar
• Topics of non-English Access, multi-script records, and transliteration will be addressed at other ALA meetings; LC has a "Unicode Group" looking at a number of issues that are inter-related
• The treatment of non-roman scripts in authority and bibliographic records is not always in synch; mechanics show possibilities, but policies must be defined before new practices are adopted

PCC NACO Series

LC continues its support with documentation and training by Judy Kuhagen and other LC and non-LC series trainers/reviewers; the Coop Team will host sessions in mid-May at LC for members of NACO-independent institutions who wish to contribute series records to the PCC databases and for those who wish to serve as PCC Series trainers. Watch for announcements for both events.

Training sessions at LC, 2007—

· We are checking the calendar for the best dates to host NACO training at LC, and hope to offer a Train-the-PCC-NACO-Trainer session.
· May 15 Train-the-PCC-Series-Trainer at LC.
· May 16-18 is PCC Series Training
· October 30—IDS (Instructor Development Seminar) for Fundamentals of LC Classification-—prospective trainers are encouraged to attend this preconference at ALA Annual as a pre-requisite. Both the Fundamentals course and the IDS are open to non-PCC participants as well as PCC participants.
· October 31—IDS for Fundamentals of Series--prospective trainers are encouraged to attend this preconference at ALA Annual as a pre-requisite. Both the Fundamentals course and the IDS are open to non-PCC participants as well as PCC participants.

SACO:

Adam Schiff will incorporate some suggested changes to the SACO Participants' Manual draft, including LC Class Web proposal instructions. The SPM will be issued electronically soon on the PCC site, and will not be issued as a print publication.

John Mitchell, developer of the online course Introduction to SACO, plans to complete work on the course by ALA Annual in Washington, DC. It is intended to replace the workshops formerly offered at ALA by the PCC.

CLW Update

Two new courses will be offered at ALA Annual, 1) Fundamentals of LC Classification, and 2) Fundamentals of Series. The Continuing Education Training Materials committee (CETM) will monitor class material for the 5 metadata/digital courses and the 4 ALCTS/PCC cataloging courses among the CLW offerings. The LCSH and the Rules & Tools courses are being revised.

Articles about PCC in TechKNOW

· Roger Miller (Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County) wrote an article about becoming a NACO library, entitled: "Developing Authority Expertise: The NACO Experience at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County"
· Margaret Maurer (Kent State U), chair of Continuing Education Training Materials (CETM) has followed Miller's article with another: "The Program for Cooperative Cataloging’s Mysterious Alphabet Soup: PCC, BIBCO, NACO, SACO, CONSER and SCCTP Unveiled.