LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE

Online Newsletter of the Cataloging Directorate Library of Congress

Volume 9, no. 14    ISSN 1066-8829   December 2001


Contents
Highlights of the Cataloging Directorate Annual Report
AACR2, Amendments 2001
LC Classification Weekly Lists
Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee Meeting
International Conference on Electronic Resources: Definition, Selection, and Cataloguing

Highlights of the Cataloging Directorate Annual Report

The annual report of the Cataloging Directorate for fiscal year 2001 (Oct. 1, 2000, through Sept. 30, 2001) is now available on the directorate Web site at URL: <http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/catdirfy01.html> [Dec. 2001]. Highlights of this very successful year include:

* Cataloging production reached the highest level since fiscal year 1998, demonstrating a continuing rally from the impact of the LC ILS implementation. The Cataloging Directorate and the Serial Record Division (SRD) together cataloged 270,801 bibliographic volumes on 235,565 bibliographic records and cleared an additional 67,837 items from other directorates' arrearage by means of 36,139 inventory-level records. Full and core-level cataloging accounted for 176,636 records, or three-quarters of all production; 4,073 new collection-level cataloging records, 23,204 minimal-level cataloging (MLC) records, and 31,652 copy-cataloged records were also completed. Total production of full and core-level original cataloging increased by more than fifteen percent over fiscal year 2000, even as the number of hours worked in this category declined by 1.02 percent. Divisions were able to complete 95.4 percent of current new receipts, and one, the Special Materials Cataloging Division (SMCD), completed 4,270 more items than it received during the year.

* The directorate and SRD created 91,880 new name authority records, 8,279 new series authority records, 6,933 new subject authority records, and 1,635 new LC Classification (LCC) proposals. Production of new name authority records increased 5.6 percent over fiscal year 2000. Production of new series authority records increased 22.25 percent, while new LCC number proposals increased nearly five percent. The directorate assigned 108,669 Dewey numbers to monographs, an increase of 6.41 percent over fiscal year 2000 and verified 48,276 Cataloging in Publication records, an increase of 22.98 percent over the previous fiscal year.

* As an indication of improved productivity, the cost of the average monograph record, including Dewey classification and authority work, increased less than three-quarters of one percent, to $122.60 from $121.70 the previous year, despite higher overhead costs and the mandated federal salary increase of 2.7 percent in January. The directorate's arrearage of non-rare books stood at 128,750 volumes at the start of the year, peaked at 152,639 volumes in February, and dropped to 145,089 by the end of September, the first decrease in more than two years. Staff accomplished impressive gains in production despite a net loss of twenty-four catalogers during the year.

* Throughput time for Cataloging in Publication (CIP) galleys in fiscal 2001 averaged 12.2 working days, a significant improvement from the average 15-day turnaround of the previous year although still a cause for concern; and seventy-five percent of galleys were completed within fourteen days. The directorate processed 54,820 CIP galleys, a four percent decrease from last year but the second highest total in the program's history. The CIP Division obtained 67,047 titles with an estimated value of $3,788,852.

* During the year the directorate celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Cataloging in Publication program and the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of the Dewey Decimal Classification with colleagues throughout the library world.

* The Library of Congress Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium, held Nov. 15 through 17, 2000, was attended by one hundred thirty-six leaders in the library and vendor communities. The conference Web site at URL: <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/> [Dec. 2001] remains available. It includes a Webcast of the actual conference and texts of all conference papers, as well as the more than one hundred fifty recommendations from the conference and "Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan," which was developed by members of the LC Cataloging Management Team on the basis of the conference recommendations. The library and vendor communities responded favorably to the action plan, and a number of library organizations agreed to collaborate with the Library on various tasks in the plan. Notably, the ALA Reference and User Services Association and the Library co-sponsored the LC/RUSA Forum on Digital Reference and Bibliographic Control at the ALA 2001 Annual Conference. (For more information about the conference, see LCCN, v. 8, no. 12, December 2000; v. 9, no. 1, January 2001; v. 9, no. 2, March 2001; v. 9, no. 4, April 2001. For more information about the action plan, see LCCN, v. 9, no. 9, July 2001, and v. 9, no. 11, October 2001.)

* Pinyin Day 1 occurred on Oct. 1, 2000, after three years of planning and preparatory work. On that date, the Library of Congress and other American libraries began using pinyin as the standard romanization scheme for Chinese characters in their catalogs. The change to pinyin from Wade-Giles romanization was announced jointly by the Library, OCLC, and the Research Libraries Group (RLG).

* Cooperative cataloging programs flourished. The chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division and the Cooperative Cataloging Team continued to serve as the secretariat to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). PCC member libraries created 143,031 new name authority records compared to 128,160 the previous year; 9,410 new series authority records, an increase over the 8,914 contributed in fiscal year 2000; 2,603 subject authority proposals, a slight decrease from 2,791 in fiscal year 2000; and 2,043 LCC proposals, more than double the 979 contributed in fiscal year 2000. Original CONSER cataloging totaled 14,445 records for serials in contrast to the 19,744 produced in fiscal year 2000. BIBCO libraries created 73,115 bibliographic records for monographs, an increase of seventeen percent over the 62,423 monograph records created in fiscal year 2000. NACO, the name authority component of the PCC, added forty- two new participating institutions and provided training for one hundred seventy-five individual librarians.

More than one third (37.5 percent) of the new additions to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) in fiscal year 2001 was submitted through SACO, the subject authority component of the PCC. The African American Subject Heading Funnel Project expanded to include thirteen institutions. The first edition of the SACO Participants' Manual was made available in print, on Cataloger's Desktop, and on the SACO Website in PDF format, in keeping with a new policy of making PCC documentation available in all three ways to facilitate participation.

* The Bibliographic Enrichment Activities Team (BEAT) continued several major projects that used electronic capabilities to enrich bibliographic data: three separate projects aimed at increasing inclusion of electronic tables of contents (TOC) in bibliographic records, including an ONIX-TOC Project that began this year; the BECites+/Area Portals/Subject Pathfinders Initiative, in coordination with the Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Division; and the Additional Analytics Access Project, which began in May. In this project URLs are systematically added to serial bibliographic records and series authority records for social science monographic series, providing links to the electronic texts. The directorate began to expand the cataloging of Internet resources, first begun as the BeOnline+ project, throughout the cataloging divisions.

* In November, approximately six hundred subject headings that included the terms "Afro-Americans" and "Afro-American..." were changed to "African Americans" and "African American...." Effective Dec. 1, 2000, Library of Congress catalogers began assigning only the new forms as subject headings in current bibliographic records. The Cataloging Policy and Support Office began projects to update bibliographic records containing the old forms. Meanwhile, subject headings in individual bibliographic records are being changed on a case-by-case basis as the records are updated for other reasons.

* Instructions in the Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings were revised to provide for art cataloging simplification and for increased access to individual works of fiction. More than 2,100 subject subdivision authority records were created and distributed to control the approximately 3,100 free-floating subdivisions in LCSH. The project to recode instances of form subdivisions in existing subject authority records from subfield code $x to $v was also about two-thirds complete.

* The Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) Program expanded to include all directorate staff who work on CIP galleys. The Electronic Preassigned Card Number (EPCN) Program was converted to a Web browser-based system. At year's end, the ECIP Program included 1,067 publishers, seventy-eight percent more than at the end of fiscal year 2000, and 10,501 publishers had established accounts for the EPCN program, a fifty-eight percent increase over fiscal year 2000. At the close of the fiscal year, the director approved the management plan for the New Books Project, an initiative to enrich catalog records for forthcoming books with a wide range of information, including tables of contents and images of book jackets. It will also include a capability for catalog users to reserve forthcoming titles at local libraries that participate in the New Books Local Partnership Program.


AACR2, Amendments 2001

The Library of Congress implemented "Amendments 2001" to AACR2 on Dec. 1, 2001. The "Amendments 2001" rule revisions are included in the current Cataloger's Desktop; they have been incorporated into the AACR2 text and they also appear separately under "Most Recent Amendments." The Library of Congress Rule Interpretations related to "Amendments 2001" have been distributed by the Cataloging Distribution Service. (Printed copies of "Amendments 2001" are available from the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association, and Library Association Publishing.)

There are three major rule revisions in "Amendments 2001":

1) Conference publications can be entered under the heading for the conference if the name of the conference appears anywhere in the item being cataloged (21.1B2(d)). LC began to apply this rule revision to conference publications cataloged after Nov. 30 (LCRI 21.1B2; 21.30E).

2) British terms of honor ("Sir," "Dame," "Lord," "Lady") will no longer be included in headings (22.1C, 22.12) but will be retained in statements of responsibility (1.1F7) and can be used to resolve conflicts in headings (22.19B). LC began to apply this rule revision to headings being newly established after Nov. 30 (LCRI 22.1C).

3) Chapter 9 has been renamed "Electronic Resources." The GMD "electronic resource" replaces "computer file" and conventional terminology (e.g., "1 CD-ROM") can now be used in the extent statement. The entire chapter has been reissued although a number of the rules within the chapter do not contain any changes. LC began to apply revised Chapter 9 to items cataloged after Nov. 30 (LCRI 1.1C; 9.3B1; 9.4F4; 9.5B1; 9.5D1).


LC Classification Weekly Lists

Beginning in January 2002, additions and changes to the Library of Congress Classification will be posted weekly on the Cataloging Policy and Support Office home page at URL: <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso> [Dec. 2001].

Users should scroll down the page to the section titled Library of Congress Classification. The approved weekly lists of new and changed classification numbers appear as the first item in this section.

The quarterly publication LC Classification: Additions and Changes is being discontinued. List 284 (October-December 2001) will be the final issue.


Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee Meeting

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Committee met Nov. 8-9, 2001, at the Library of Congress. The meeting began with Larry Alford (University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill), chair, introducing new members and guests.

Beacher Wiggins, LC Director for Cataloging, addressed the topic of the PCC role in implementing LC's action plan for the bibliographic control of Web resources.

Next, a discussion of the role of the PCC with regard to the study of catalog use was introduced with the report by Karen Letarte and her Task Group on Model C User Perspectives on the PCC BIBCO core-level record standard. This study was aimed at developing and applying a research model to evaluate the core-level record standard from the patron's perspective. The full text of this report is available in pdf format at URL: <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/modelcfinal.pdf> [Dec. 2001].

A major item of business was consideration of the BIBCO core- level record study by David Banush of Cornell University. The BIBCO core-level record has been less widely implemented than initially hoped. The vast majority of BIBCO participants continue to contribute mostly or exclusively full-level records. The report undertook a qualitative study of cataloger and manager attitudes toward the core-level record, with the stated goal of assisting the PCC Policy Committee in its planning for and marketing of the BIBCO Program. The full text of the report, with an executive summary, is available in pdf format at URL: <http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/coretudefinal.html> [Dec. 2001].

The report and its recommendations became the basis for a brainstorming session on the PCC strategic plan for 2002-2006. The Policy Committee divided into four groups each addressing a goal in the current strategic plan. Each group identified objectives to be covered in the new plan: 1) database/bibliographic and authority records, 2) standards, 3) leadership, 4) and membership.

Carol Hixson, chair of the Standing Committee on Training, summarized a "white" paper on the PCC role in continuing education for catalogers. Ensuing discussion explored the benefits of expanding the training efforts of the PCC that involve other organizations in developing training programs in a greater variety of venues. An assessment of a pilot project on subject analysis will provide valuable information on practicability.

A continuing topic at PCC meetings has been a "wish list" of functionalities for bibliographic utilities, mainly aimed at OCLC's resystemization. Glenn Patton, the OCLC member of the Policy Committee, commented on the "wish list." NACO functionality was introduced in October into new modules of CORC and CatME. OCLC is developing improvements to batch processing. OCLC wants to separate BIBCO records from mixed batches and to treat them appropriately before the end of 2001. OCLC and RLG expressed their willingness to continue talks toward the exchange of BIBCO records.

Jean Hirons, CONSER Coordinator, discussed the final report of the Task Group on Implementation of Integrating Resources, which has three sections: documentation and training, maintenance, and distribution. Much of the discussion focused on maintenance and distribution and the model to use. There was consensus that PCC should play a strong role in providing documentation and training.

CONSER and BIBCO membership and representation were also discussed during the committee meeting.


International Conference on Electronic Resources: Definition, Selection, and Cataloguing

John D. Byrum, chief, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, delivered the key-note address at the International Conference on Electronic Resources: Definition, Selection, and Cataloguing, held in Rome, Italy, Nov. 26-28, 2001. His topic was "Challenges of Electronic Resources: State of the Art and Unresolved Problems." Also attending from the Library of Congress was Barbara Tillett, chief, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, who spoke on "AACR2's Accommodations to Electronic Resources: Response of a Multi-national Cataloguing Code a Case Study." This gathering with more than thirty presentations by speakers from the United States, Canada, France, Finland, Germany, England, Israel, and Italy, was attended by 650 librarians. The event was sponsored by the Universita degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza," the Ministero per i beni e le attivita culturali and the Associazione italiana biblioteche (AIB) and convened by Mauro Guerrini, Universita di Firenze. Several of the presentations are currently available at the conference Web site at URL <http://w3.uniroma1.it/ssab/er/en/program.htm> [Dec. 2001]. Dr. Guerrini intends to edit the full proceedings with English and Italian versions of each paper for publication by AIB in 2002.


LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE (ISSN 1066-8829) is published irregularly by the Cataloging Directorate, Library Services, Library of Congress, and contains news of cataloging activities throughout the Library of Congress. Editorial Office: Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-4305. Editor, Robert M. Hiatt; Editorial Advisory Group: Victoria Behrens, John Byrum, Roselyne Chang, Jurij Dobczansky, Anthony Franks, Les Hawkins, Albert Kohlmeier, Susan Morris, Geraldine Ostrove, David Smith, David Williamson, and Roman Worobec. Address editorial inquiries to the editor at the above address or rhia@loc.gov (email), (202) 707-5831 (voice), or (202) 707-6629 (fax). Listowner: David Williamson. Address subscription inquiries to the listowner at dawi@loc.gov.

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