PCC Participants' Meeting

ALA Annual Conference 2001
San Francisco Hilton & Towers
Sunday, June 17, 2001 7:00-9:00 P.M.
Summary

Larry Alford, Chair of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, opened the Participant's Meeting with a warm welcome and status report about the PCC component programs. NACO has gained five new members and expanded to include one new funnel project. Active SACO participants now number seventy-one. The number of BIBCO libraries has increased by one, now bringing the total to forty-three, and the CONSER program has seen the addition of 2 new members, and now numbers forty-one. There has been a 10% increase in the production of new NACO records in the first half of FY01 and a 3% increase in the production of bibliographic records contributed through the BIBCO program. New subject headings submitted through the SACO program have fallen off slightly in comparison with the figures from FY00; however, new classification proposals have risen sharply by 43%. CONSER authentications and maintenance statistics show less than a 10% margin of decrease over FY00 totals.

Alford heralded the completion of the recently published SACO Participants' Manual prepared by Adam L. Schiff, University of Washington and the newly revised PCC brochure. In conjunction with this new SACO manual, Alford announced that PCC training materials will now be mounted on the PCC Web site.

Other recent accomplishments of the program included holding the 15th NACO Series Institute in March and the two SACO workshops held during the ALA conference. The NACO Trainee Manual has undergone revision; the CONSER Publication Pattern Initiative has completed the first of a 2-year pilot program; the SCCTP released its second course focusing on serials holdings; and the BIBCO Core Record Study has been completed by David Banush of Cornell University.

Alford turned next to the accomplishments of the PCC's Standing Committees. The Task Group on OCLC Batch Loading has completed its charge and delivered its recommendations. The Standing Committee on Standards is currently reviewing all existing core record standards, and is engaged in the further development of Model C (a data-gathering tool used to assess the impact of core record implementation on catalog users). The Task Group on Educational Needs of the Cataloging Community has identified additional training needs and forwarded its final report and recommendations to the Standing Committee on Training. Alford reported that the Task Group on PCC Participant and Training Documentation recommended in its final report for acceptance of diverse distribution methods for all PCC materials, which dovetails nicely with the future availability of PCC documentation on the Web.

Alford summarized the international developments briefly and explained that AG Canada is destined to become a PCC node, perhaps in early Fall 2001 and that the British Library will adopt MARC 21. Alford unveiled the plans for a week-long SACO workshop for Latin American institutions to be held in the Fall of 2001.

The results of the Operations Committee meetings held in May of 2001 were reported. Alford stated that both the BIBCO and CONSER programs jointly discussed the PCC role in regard to bibliographic control of integrating resources (IRs) as well as the "utilities wish-list". CONSER has set up a pilot study to use PURLS in CONSER records and is exploring a new membership category called USNP Enhance, for the U.S. Newspaper Project libraries. BIBCO, in its discussions, identified the need for longer terms for members of its Operations Committee; however, in light of the Banush report, the OpCo plans to await direction from the PCC Policy Committee. Alford also reported that BIBCO has significantly moved forward with its development of the new BIBCO Participants' Manual through the efforts and perseverance of Carol Hixson, Chair, Standing Committee on Training.

Alford addressed the changes in the LC Cooperative Cataloging staff assignments. Alford announced that Ana Cristán has been appointed as the BIBCO Coordinator, Carolyn Sturtevant has been named as the NACO Coordinator, Anthony Franks will serve as the INTCO (International Cooperative Programs) Coordinator, and Ruta Penkiunas will function as the SACO Coordinator and Cooperative Cataloging Team Leader. Alford reported that the results of the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) elections are not yet available. He did announce that the incoming Chair of the Standing Committee on Automation will be Gary Charbonneau of Indiana University, effective in October 2001.

Update of LC action plan in regard to the PCC

Beacher Wiggins, Director for Cataloging, Library of Congress, spoke about the action plan stemming from the Library of Congress "Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium: Confronting the Challenge of Networked Resources and the Web" that was held on November 15-17, 2000. LC's Cataloging Directorate convened this invitational Conference as a working meeting of experts from the various communities that play a role in the creation, retrieval, and cataloging of Web resources. The primary goals of the Conference were

1. to develop an overall strategy to address the challenges of improved access to Web resources through library catalogs and applications of metadata; and
2. to identify attainable actions for achieving the overall strategy.

The aim of the conference, therefore, was to generate recommendations for the Library of Congress, in collaboration with the larger library community, to use as a blueprint for action to improve bibliographic control of the Web. Wiggins invited comments on any aspect of the Action plan with its six overarching objectives:

1. increased availability of standard records for Web resources;
2. enhancing record display and access across multiple systems;
3. collaboration among metadata standards communities for better bibliographic control of Web resources;
4. development of automated tools for harvesting and maintaining metadata;
5. provision of appropriate training for the Web environment; and
6. support of research and development to enhance bibliographic control of Web resources.

Wiggins requested that comments be addressed to Judy Mansfield via email at juma@loc.gov or via fax at 202-707-0973 as early as possible, but no later than September 1, 2001.

Developments at San Francisco, ALA

Ann Caldwell, Chair, PCC Standing Committee on Standards (SCS), reported on the work of the SCS. Caldwell explained that many of the current members of the SCS were unable to attend ALA in San Francisco. She announced that Karen Letarte (Southwest Missouri State) is working on the final report of Model C, scheduled for delivery in August 2001. Caldwell stated that the SCS continues its efforts in core record harmonization and that the cartographic core-level record will be for use in cataloging all types of cartographic materials. Caldwell also expressed appreciation for the work of three SCS members who have fulfilled their terms on the SCS and will rotate off in September; namely, Colleen Hyslop, Susan Summer, and Kathy Winzer.

Carol Hixson, Chair, PCC Standing Committee on Training (SCT), informed the PCC audience concerning the draft of the BIBCO Participants' Manual and provided the URL for additional comments. Hixson explained that the National Library of Medicine's suggestions for enriching the manual had been taken into account and that additional comments are still being solicited. Hixson announced that she hopes that the manual will be ready by ALA Midwinter in New Orleans, 2002. In a follow-up action resulting from the Task Group on the Educational Needs of the Cataloging Community and in preliminary discussion with the Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) of the Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS) of ALCTS, Hixson proposed that the PCC look into the development of a course on subject analysis as a continuing educational effort for catalogers. Hixson claimed that the need for ongoing catalogers training is not being met by academic institutions offering the MLS degree, and that it was in keeping with the mission of the PCC to provide the leadership for such an endeavor.

Karen Calhoun, Chair, PCC Standing Committee on Automation (SCA), announced that Gary Charbonneau (Indiana University) is the incoming chair, and that John Riemer (UCLA) will replace Matthew Beacom (Yale) who is rotating off. An opening for a vendor liaison to the SCA also exists. Calhoun pointed to the final report of the OCLC Batchloading Task Group which had finished its work, and provided advice to OCLC on batchloading elements that were desired. Highlights included a quick turn around time, the BIBCO replace function, mixed files, and a revisiting of the recommendations in 2-3 years. Calhoun also spoke about the final report of the SCA Task Group on Automated Classification. She claimed that there continues to be an opportunity for involvement in automating classification. Calhoun announced that Gary Strawn (Northwestern) will be demonstrating desired functionality for automated classification during the 2002 ALA Midwinter Conference in New Orleans. Calhoun also announced that in addition to the sets of vendor records available from EBSCO, ProQuest, and Gale, that Lexus/Nexus is planning to create a set for Academic Universe.

Ana Cristán, BIBCO Coordinator, summarized the BIBCO-At-Large meeting that took place during annual conference. Cristán focused on the results of the BIBCO Operations Committee meeting that had taken place in May 2001, which led directly into the discussion of integrating resources (IRs). Most importantly, Cristán reported on the Banush study of the core record and corresponding cataloger's attitudes, which had occupied a large part of the agenda.

Jean Hirons, CONSER Coordinator, presented the serial-related issues and discussion points that occupied center stage during ALA. Hirons announced that MARBI had unanimously approved code "i" as a new bibliographic level code, and that MARBI had authorized a repeatable 260 field. Hirons recapped that Chapter 12 of AACR2 "Continuing Resources" is scheduled for publication in 2002. Hirons then focused on serial holdings, discussing a LITA pre-conference, CONSER task force meetings and a participant's workshop. The CONSER Publication Pattern Initiatives was mentioned throughout the pre-conference and is beginning to make a difference as more and more 891 fields are added to CONSER records. She also noted that Diane Hillmann and Ellen Rappoport will be developing a description of what "MARC holdings-compliant" means.

Round Table Discussion: Utilities Wish List

(Moderator: Bob Wolven (Chair-Elect of the PCC); Panelists: Karen Calhoun, Ana Cristán, Ed Glazier, Jean Hirons, and Glenn Patton)

The focus of the PCC Participants' Meeting then shifted to a panel question/answer session with representatives from the utilities who responded to a wish-list of automation improvements suggested by PCC participants. Both the BIBCO and CONSER Coordinators focused questions about the automation developments that the utilities have envisioned and/or implemented.

OCLC responded to a list of queries from the BIBCO Coordinator, Cristán, by stating that the NACO interfaces for CORC should be operational by the end of August 2001 [subsequently rescheduled to the end of September 2001]. OCLC also ventured to say that the CATME platform should be able to support NACO functionality by October 2001, with Passport Software being phased out of service by the end of 2003.

Ed Glazier, RLG 's spokesperson, stated that with the Authority Assistant, one can create authority records from bibliographic records in RLIN databases, in remote files (like the Consortium of University and Research Libraries (CURL) Union Catalog, the Deutsche Bibliothek catalog, and the National Library of Australia Catalog), and if properly configured, directly from bibliographic records created in one's own local system.

Hirons asked about the availability of a multi-dimensional record that would accommodate a universal holdings record.

Glenn Patton, OCLC's spokesperson, replied that the new OCLC database under development will be a relational database which will also be capable of supporting multilingual records and should be able to accommodate this.

In a response to a query about pattern data RLG did indicate that this pattern data was being loaded in CONSER records, but remains concerned that the fields being used for pattern data are the same as for "real" holdings. RLG has already seen confusion from users (e.g., LC) about whether this information means that a title is really held by an institution.

Calhoun had a general query about the precision and accuracy of retrieval for the collapse of all versions, manifestations, or expression of a work, or an item. OCLC responded by saying that as part of the new database implementation, OCLC is investigating how to incorporate the recommendations of the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) into the design. Making use of the FRBR concepts of "work", "expression", and "manifestation" would facilitate retrieval.

RLG indicated some possible interest in this information, but urged caution, because these concepts would not be clear to users and might obscure the actual holdings represented in catalogs.

Recognition and Appreciations

Alford returned to the podium to present certificates of appreciation to several outstanding participants in the PCC community. Alford presented a certificate to Karen Calhoun, outgoing Chair, SCA, for her outstanding efforts in functioning as the SCA Chair. In her gracious acceptance of the certificate, Calhoun summarized her experience of being chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Automation as having been exceptionally rewarding and productive for her. She described it as a position from which, working with the committee members and its task forces, that one can really make a difference. Working with the SCA had provided Calhoun with several insights--about stability, and about change. Calhoun ventured on to state that

"with our [the committee's] extensive range of perspectives, opinions, and priorities, that SCA members don't always agree, but that a set of enduring values holds us [the committee] together. At the same time, SCA members have an intense drive for progress. They are innovators who are not afraid to look at things in a new way, to take risks."

Calhoun expressed her gratitude and felt honored to have been able to be part of the work of the committee. Calhoun concluded with the exclamatory remark: "Long live the PCC!"

Alford presented a certificate of appreciation to Adam L. Schiff, for his outstanding contributions in creating the SACO Participants' Manual; Schiff humbly expressed appreciation to his many colleagues at the University of Washington for all their support and hard work enabling him to receive the certificate.

Lastly, Alford read the certificate to be presented to Elizabeth Steinhagen, for her brilliant efforts in providing the Spanish translation of the NACO Participants' Manual.

The meeting was then adjourned.