ALC CATALOGING COMMITTEE
AFRICANA SUBJECT FUNNEL PROJECT
FALL 1999
The following subject headings have been proposed since the last update (Spring 1999)Kwatay language
Masks, Baule
One-act plays, Zulu
Radio plays, Zulu
Seychelles fiction (French Creole)
Seychelles literature
Seychelles literature (French Creole)
Short stories, Seychelles (French Creole)
Television plays, Nigeria (English)
Television plays, Zulu
Weekly Lists and NEW Tentative Weekly Lists
LC has just finished initial ILS implementation stages and it's hard to answer questions about the timing of SACO tentative or approved lists appearing on the CPSO homepage. The pre-meeting and post-meeting processing of the list itself takes time, and so far there does not seem to be a predictable schedule in assembling and distributing the lists online. In pre-ILS days it was not unusual for an approved heading to take 2-3 weeks to appear in the utilities following the verification process at LC and the weekly schedules of FTP and uploading at LC and the OCLC respectively.
SUBJECT HEADINGS FOR BIBCO RECORDS
We may consider a proposed heading as pre-approved for use in BIBCO records unless we hear otherwise. Often, changes in the proposal affect the reference structure more than the 1xx. If a 1xx is changed in the process, LC will try to notify us right after the meetings.
STATISTICS AND WHERE ARE OUR HEADINGS NOW?
Officially our stats for FY99 (Oct. 1 1998 to Sept. 31 1999) will reflect 22 new subject headings. The LC pending files are bulging with proposals still in process due to the suspension of weekly meetings in July and August during ILS implementation, but (and?) the quantity is increasing. They don't know which proposals of ours may be in the pending files, and have no quick way to determine that at their end, since they're not filed by library. In a new workflow they adopted this summer to avoid backlogs on any one cataloger's desk, they generally distribute new proposals from a central receiving address to a pool of catalogers who work on SACO proposals, so no one person has a folder of our pending items.
FUTURE SACO WORSHOPS
LC has plans to offer SACO workshops at ALA Midwinter in San Antonio on Friday, January 14. The workshops will depart from their usual pattern in that the morning session will focus on LC classification and the afternoon session on events, buildings, structures, etc. They will soon have announcements and registration info on the PCC home page.
* Above information cribbed from an email note from our SACO liaison, Carolyn Sturtevant.
SACO WEB PAGE
In July work was done on the PCC home page that increases our visibility. A new list of SACO funnel projects was added (us and OCLC Fiction Project) and links were made to our ALC web page. Ana Christan consulted with us on the content of a new FAQ about Funnel Projects. The original draft emphasized library or institutional participation and our feedback stressed the fact that members of our funnel participate as individuals through the Africana Librarians Council and that we were open to anyone who was interested in joining.
See: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/funnelfaq.html
AFRICAN AMERICAN SUBJECT FUNNEL
The African American Studies and Librarians Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries is investigating the possibility of establishing a funnel project for African American subject headings. They are conducting a survey to determine the level of interest for such a project and will discuss it further at ALA Midwinter 2000.