BIBCO-At-Large Meeting

Summary Report

ALA MidWinter, New Orleans, LA
January 20, 2002

Ana Cristán, BIBCO Coordinator opened the meeting by welcoming two new BIBCO members: Duke University and State University of New York at Buffalo.

In welcoming the new rotating members of the BIBCO Operations Committee (OpCo) Cristán reported that the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) had approved extending the rotational terms of the OpCos from 2 to 3 years. In doing so, the PoCo directed that it was necessary to ensure that rotation would continue to take place annually. To accomplish, Cristán outlined a proposal for a staggered rotation; four of the five new members would serve 3-year terms and one new member would serve a 2-year term. To further assure continuity, two of the OpCo members whose terms would expire in September 2002 would be extended for another year. This sets in motion a 4, 3, 3, rotational cycle. In approving the proposal a Steering Committee member declared this "an elegant solution that worked for the U.S. Senate of 1789, it should serve the OpCo as well." A list of OpCo members and terms may be found on the BIBCO home page at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco_opco.html

In response to questions asked about the mechanism for selection of OpCo members, Cristán noted that the PCC governance empowers the BIBCO Coordinator to select representatives from the membership but does not provide any criteria for the process. The considerations currently employed include consultation with BIBCO administrators, members of the OpCo, and prospective candidates with a view to ensuring that representatives reflect the BIBCO membership by region and type of institution (in as much as is possible).

Integrating Resources--Follow-Up

Following the PoCo's approval of the recommendations in the Final report of the Task Group on Implementation of Integrating Resources an LC task group has been formed to offer comments on the need for and the development of LCRIs for revised Chapter 12 of AACR2 which includes the rules for the cataloging of integrating resources. Judy Kuhagen, LC-CPSO, chairs the group reviewing Chapter 12. The members of this task group includes LC catalogers and 3 PCC reviewers: Adam Schiff (University of Washington), Paul Weiss (University of California, San Diego), and Ann Sitkin (Harvard University Law Library).

The current plan is for this task group to finish their work by March 2002. This will enable a follow-up group from the Standing Committee on Training, working with the BIBCO Coordinator, to develop training materials and documentation for the PCC. It is envisioned that an integrating resources workshop using these newly developed materials will be presented at the BIBCO Operations Committee Meeting scheduled for May 2-3^rd. Cristán reminded the audience that the OpCo meetings are open to all BIBCO members and announcements will be made to confirm the workshops in May as soon as possible.

LC plans to coordinate its training and implementation of Chapter 12 and 3 with the publication of other revisions of AACR2 (which is expected no later than June, 2002) and has announced September 1, 2002, as the official implementation date.

Cristán commented that the work of the task group reviewing Chapter 12 is extremely important and has been made doubly so by the JSC decision not to approve further distribution of pre-publication materials due to concerns of the publishers of AACR2. The result of this decision means there will not be a comment period for the LCRIs prior to publication. Thus, the three PCC reviewers working on the task group are representing not only BIBCO concerns but will speak for the entire PCC membership.

There will be no PCC representatives on the task group charged with examining the need for and subsequent development of LCRIs for the revised AACR2 Chapter 3; however, U.S. cartographic materials librarians were involved with the revision of Chapter 3 carried out by the ALA MAGRET group for JSC and if necessary LCRIs can be revised further after publication.

Report on Model C Survey methodology

At the request of the Standing Committee on Standards and with the support of the PCC Steering Committee, Karen Letarte, North Carolina State University, with the assistance of Michelle Turvey (Southwest Missouri State University) conducted research to quantify the ability of the Core Bibliographic Record standard for Books to meet the information needs of catalog users. The study entitled: User Perspectives on the PCC BIBCO core record standard was reviewed at the PoCo's annual meeting in November. The study employed a restructured Model C survey instrument based on the Elaine Yountz draft but keyed to the FRBR user tasks.

The first part of the survey asked users to rate the usefulness of individual data elements in core and full records, using a card set to represent the data. In the second part of the study, users answered a questionnaire about the usefulness of each record type as a whole. The records they examined were two core records and two full records for social science monographs from LC cataloging records with a variety of fields. Users ranked elements using a 5-point scale. Data sets for core and for full were separated. In core records, title, author, and LC call number were judged the most useful. Letarte observed that users don't value many other fields as highly as catalogers value them. In the full records, the most useful items were very similar, but series information and the added author/editor were also identified as highly useful.

Since core records include the most valued tags, there was no significant difference in usefulness perceived between data elements in core and full records. How sufficient was the information in the core record in and of itself? Core records carry information sufficient to find and to identify a record; nevertheless, the data did not prove if information is sufficient to select an item, so that part of the study is inconclusive. The data were also inconclusive with respect to user perception of the sufficiency of author, title, and subject headings in core records.

While users appeared to prefer full over core records for title and subject headings, Letarte commented that there is insufficient data to prove a preference of full over core in other elements tested, leading to her conclusion that more research is needed in users' use and understanding of core records, the elements contained within records, and what users' perceive as quality records. Research is needed also to study the impact of authority work on users.

Questions and answers centered on methodology and on participant reactions to the research experience. Cristán thanked Letarte for her work and invited the audience to submit ideas, suggestions or proposals for further research in this area. These may be sent to any member of the PoCo or directly to Cristán.

BIBCO Core Record Study--Recommendations and the PoCo Response

David Banush, Cornell University, gave a focused report of the recommendations which accompanied the BIBCO Core Record Study: Final Report. The recommendations were presented to the PoCo for their consideration at the annual meeting in November 2001 and had not been previously made available to the membership at large. The recommendations outlined possible futures for the BIBCO program with the ultimate goal of assisting the PCC in marketing the BIBCO Program more successfully.

As a prelude Banush, reminded the audience of the structure and results of the cataloger survey he had undertaken which included: 1) a clear consensus on issues surrounding training and documentation, 2) specific solutions to problems, and 3) general observations. Banush used the results of the survey and the current environment of cataloging to form recommendations which he felt would ultimately reach catalogers and raise the image of the BIBCO Program.

Banush grouped the recommendations into three categories: conservative, evolutionary, and transformative. The objective of this categorization was that the recommendations could be adopted fully or partially and/or implemented over time.

Conservative recommendations:

Redesign training materials and documentation to portray core in a way to prevent the perception that a core record is a full record with some things taken away, and therefore incomplete. Tone down the evangelical language about BIBCO in favor of more examples and greater details about applying BIBCO principles in cataloging. (Banush noted that these changes are pending even now in newer materials). Expand publicity which might help reach the goal of 100 participants envisioned in a 1999 article about BIBCO. Further research in the use of BIBCO records is needed. Users request access to BIBCO records in both utilities.

The PoCo response to this set of recommendations was favorable. As noted many of these same ideas are in the process of being carried out. Larry Alford, Chair of the PCC, reported that letters from the PCC to the utilities brought replies showing their willingness to work toward the goal of timely access to PCC records across utilities.

Evolutionary recommendations:

This set included a recommendation de-emphasizing the core record in BIBCO; renaming the core records to leave behind negative perceptions; and placing greater emphasis on cataloger judgment.

Alford said that the PoCo is not interested in changing the name of the core record. The PCC is committed to fostering a mechanism that provides timely, cost-effective, and useful bibliographic records and renaming the current name to something else would not "fool" anyone. Alford noted that it may be appropriate to give a more balanced presentation of full and core in training and documentation and added that the SCT is already working on this. Cataloger judgment has always been a key factor in the PCC philosophy. Perhaps a clear articulation that cataloger judgment includes an assessment of the time it takes to catalog one item in view of all other items needing to be processed may be necessary. As for the negative perception of the core record, Alford pointed to the dichotomy first reported in the Banush report, that many BIBCO libraries report that they do not create core records although those same libraries report that core records are accepted as copy without review is clearly a barrier that can be broken down in time.

Transformative Recommendations:

In this set of recommendation BIBCO would downplay the production of bibliographic records and focus on the PCC training services to the larger cataloging community. In other words, BIBCO record production as part of BIBCO membership would be substituted with participation on task groups, training and development of documentation, etc. Non-AACR2 and non-MARC formats would be embraced for the PCC program.

The PoCo discussed this set of recommendations without adopting any immediately; nonetheless, these will be further studied and may be folded into the long range plans of the PCC. Alford noted that there continues to be a need for libraries to produce more records that can be easily shared and that the PCC is committed to facilitating this in as many ways as possible. He repeated his thanks to David Banush and to Cornell University for this valuable work which will inform the direction of the PCC Strategic Plan for the next 5 years. BIBCO members are encouraged to read this report and recommendations and to forward comments and suggestions to the BIBCO Coordinator or to PoCo members before November 2002.

The meeting closed with Carol Hixson, Chair of the SC on Training, reporting that the revised edition of the BIBCO Participants' Manual is in the final draft stage but is still available for comment at: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~chixson/bibco/outlinerev.html