PCC Participants Discussion Group

Sunday, July 7, 1996
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City

Sarah Thomas opened the meeting of the PCC Participants Discussion Group (formerly the LC-Cooperative Cataloging Discussion Group) and announced the availability of the newly printed PCC brochure. Sarah reported on the PCC Executive Council Meeting held May 13, 1996 at the Library of Congress, stating that BIBCO expansion is the highest priority for the PCC. She spoke about the goals of increasing the membership and the number of contributed records. The current goal is for 80,000 records by the year 2000, with a breakdown of approximately 15,000 records annually. BIBCO participants themselves are to set annual goals.

The role of the PCC operational advisors has been clarified. The duties include (1) advising on technical cataloging issues; (2) attending the PCC ExCo Meeting at both the Midwinter and Annual ALA; (3) commenting on standing committee reports; (4) monitoring cataloging trends through listserves, journals, etc.; and, (5) bringing matters of operational importance to the attention of the Executive Council. Qualifications for the position of operational advisor include (1) several years of operational experience; (2) familiarity with national trends in cataloging; (3) ability to attend ALA; (4) Internet familiarity; (5) access to national level cataloging sources such as OCLC and RLIN; and (6) institutional support.

Sarah Thomas then discussed the changes to the PCC Strategic (5-year) Plan (1996-2000) which includes streamlining to eliminate objectives that have already been accomplished and to lower priority items; adjusting program goals to make them more realistic; and adjusting for program startup time to reflect for current productivity. The plan reflects (1) increased emphasis on BIBCO; (2) expansion of NACO by adding ten new members annually; (3) record exchanges; (4) increased importance on training aspects, including values; and (5) format alignment. This information is available on the PCC Home Page.

The statement of Responsibilities of Fully Independent Members of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging was then discussed. The statement addressed the proven ability of trained and independent PCC participants and emphasized self-reliance and confidence in seeking solutions in cataloging without looking to the Library of Congress for the final word. It sought to confirm the role of the Coop Team as a resource for PCC libraries as well as to point out that Coop's primary function is to fulfill most of the responsibilities of the PCC Secretariat. The letter reminded participants that the Team is available for consultation and will continue to accept notifications of duplicate records as well as notification of bibliographic file maintenance (BFM) necessitated by the creation of or changes to name authority records.

Sarah Thomas reported a change in the core bibliographic record to add the 502 field.

Citations were then presented to Willy Cromwell-Kessler, Michael Kaplan, Carol Mandel, Joan Swanekamp, and Linda West by Sarah Thomas for their efforts and hard work in advancing the cause of the PCC.

Sue Phillips next gave the CONSER Report. She began by announcing the reception to be given in honor of Jean Hirons who had won the Bowker/Ulrich's Serials Librarianship Award. She reported on the work of the Task Force on AACR Review; the Task Force is charged with identifying aspects of the code that should be revised for serials in anticipation of an international conference in 1997. The group is looking at rule 12.0A of AACR2 and decided to grapple with the issue of what constitutes a "serial work", examining when a new successive entry record would be required by a change in title, heading, or numbering.

CONSER has also created a new membership level called CONSER Enhance. CONSER Enhance would allow more institutions to participate in maintaining and/or enhancing the CONSER database. CONSER Enhance members will work with CONSER institutions in a mentoring environment.

The proposed merger of BIBCO and CONSER was mentioned. One model presented for discussion would include a general policy group to discuss major issues; a smaller executive committee to deal with budget, funding, and administrative issues; and two operational committees, one for CONSER members, and the other for BIBCO participants.

Ann Della Porta then followed with the COOP Team's report. The names of the new NACO libraries were reported. (Since June 1995, eighteen new libraries have received NACO training, including Blackwell/North America, Bowling Green State University, Brooklyn School of Law, Brown University, Central Washington University, Cooperative Computer Services, Freer Gallery of Art, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Indiana School of Law at Indianapolis, Michigan State University, Oliveira Lima Collection at Catholic University, Pace University Law School, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Kansas, University of Wyoming, Washington University, and Western Washington University.) Brown University is now coordinating a NACO funnel project for Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC). Georgetown University Law Center will coordinate a funnel project for university law libraries in the Washington, D.C. area. The University of Washington, Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana have taken steps to increase their NACO participation by expanding training for catalogers at their libraries.

The fifth Series Institute will be held at the Library of Congress on September 18-20, 1996 and will be taught by Judy Kuhagen. A SACO workshop to be taught by Lynn El-Hoshy was announced and will be held at the Library of Congress on February 13, 1997. The second Training the NACO Trainer was also announced for February 18 and 19, 1997, with CPSO and Coop Staff serving as faculty.

An announcement was made that the British Library will soon begin the FTP of authority records. Ann finished the reporting session by putting in a plug to attend the ALA Midwinter in Washington, D.C.

The final portion of the program was entitled "New Alternatives to the Traditional: NACO and BIBCO enter a New Age of Contributions" and featured Michael Kaplan, Glenn Patton, and David Williamson speaking about innovative changes in the electronic transfer and sharing of cataloging resources. Michael Kaplan demonstrated the new OCLC macro used to create name authority records from bibliographic records; Glenn Patton told of OCLC batch processing of name authority records; and David Williamson demonstrated "ClipSearch" and "MUMS Little Helper" which are used to automate searching and name authority generation at the Library of Congress.