PCC Standing Committee on Standards
Task Group on Conference Publications
Final Report
Jan. 17, 2003
Background:
In February 1995, the CONSER Task Force on the Cataloging of Conference Publications
was appointed to study three major issues surrounding the cataloging of conference
publications: 1) monograph vs. serial treatment, 2) choice of title and title
changes, and 3) headings for conferences. After two years of diligent work,
the Task Force successfully addressed the first issue by recommending revisions
to LCRI 12.0A that simplified the decision-making process for catalogers
and improved access points for users. At the same time, CONSER was merging
into the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), and the Task Force recommended
that the PCC Standards Committee be charged with considering the remaining
issues.
In April 2001 the PCC Standing Committee on Standards established this Task
Group on Conference Publications to address four issues that affect the cataloging,
processing and use of conference publications. Three of the issues are follow-up
recommendations from the CONSER task force and one is a newer issue.
Charge:
1. Develop clear guidelines in the rules that can be
used by catalog librarians in determining a consistent choice of title
for conference publications.
2. Review and propose changes beyond those recommended
by CC:DA [Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access] in the Major
changes appendix to the rules to define categories of minor changes in
name, which would not constitute a name change (similar to the provisions
in AACR2 21.2A1 and LCRI 21.2A).
3. Review and propose changes to the rules to provide
clear guidelines on how to record the abbreviated form of the year in the
name of a conference when establishing the heading for that conference
(for example, EuroGP'99 vs. EuroGP '99).
4. Explore options for ensuring that runs of conference
publications are classed in the same classification number when cataloging
them as monographs. For example, recording the class number in authority
records for conference names.
Summary of activities:
Four of the five members of the Task Group met June 16, 2001, during the Annual
Conference of the American Library Association (ALA) in San Francisco. Besides
allowing those present to get better acquainted and to reach a common understanding
of the charge to the group, the ninety-minute gathering provided time to hold
initial discussions on each of the four items in the charge. Three members
of the Task Group met April 30, 2002, just prior to the PCC's CONSER and BIBCO
Operations Committees' Annual Meetings in Washington. In a productive meeting
held in the conference room of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO)
at the Library of Congress (LC) significant progress was made toward resolution
of matters related to all four items in the group's charge. It was particularly
helpful to receive valuable guidance and assistance from CPSO on some of those
issues. All five members of the Task Group met June 16, 2002, during the ALA
Annual Conference in Atlanta. It was at this final meeting, with all members
present, that most of the remaining issues were discussed and resolved.
Between these in-person gatherings the members of the task group discussed
the issues via e-mail, using a mail list set up at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT). While the amount of discussion occurring electronically
was surely greater, it seemed that more progress toward resolution of the issues
was made during those personal encounters.
During its deliberations the Task Group sought little guidance and few opinions
from beyond its members. As mentioned earlier, opinions relayed to the group
from CPSO were of great assistance. The group received what proved to be a
valuable suggestion from Paul J. Weiss of the University of California, San
Diego (UCSD), related to item 2 of the charge. For item 4 of the charge, it
was helpful to have knowledge of relevant policies followed at UCSD, Rutgers
University, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and MIT. An attempt
to solicit the opinions of science and technology cataloging specialists via
an appropriately focused electronic discussion list yielded no comments on
any of the items in our charge. In the end it was primarily the intellectual
contributions and the discussions of the five members of the group itself that
led to consensus on all four items in the charge.
Recommendations and discussions:
1. Develop clear guidelines in the rules that can be used by catalog
librarians in determining a consistent choice of title for conference publications.
Recommendation:
The Task Group recommends no changes in current policies and practices.
Discussion:
Among those who catalog a large quantity of conference publications it has
become apparent over the years that serial catalogers and monograph catalogers
have, in general, different criteria for selecting the title proper of a typical
conference publication. Though both catalogers follow the Anglo-American Cataloging
Rules (AACR), a monograph cataloger and a serial cataloger can look at the
same page of the same publication issued by a conference and select different
information on that page as the title proper. How can that be? If both catalogers
are experienced professionals following the same rules should not their choices
be identical?
As this Task Group included a diverse group of catalogers, some with more
serial expertise, some with more monograph expertise, but all with experience
encompassing the entire spectrum of conference publications, the group's initial
discussions included arguments that might be thought of as reflecting both
sides of this issue.
The serial side of the choice-of-title debate might be characterized as being
based on a strict interpretation of AACR's definition of conferences as named
corporate bodies. If conferences are names, then the cataloger should look
elsewhere on the chief source for something to record as the title, while then
treating the named conference on the chief source just as one would treat any
other name, personal or corporate, William Shakespeare or Yale University.
There is, however, another characteristic of the serials cataloger to recognize:
the serials cataloger, being averse to title changes, will try to select as
title proper the word(s) or phrase on the chief source that is likely to remain
constant over the life of the publication. With these two factors overriding
all others, the serial cataloger will, as a rule, select as title proper the
ongoing generic term such as Proceedings, Technical papers, or Abstracts.
On the other hand, the monograph cataloger is more likely to take into account
the design and typography of the chief source, and take a top-to-bottom of
the page approach in recording the title proper of a conference publication.
And there is a tendency to consider as subtitle the very words that serials
catalogers tend to select as title proper. "Proceedings" for
example, may appear toward the bottom of the page, likely in smaller print
than the name of the conference, and is not thought of as a weighty or meaningful
title selection. In addition, the monograph cataloger's choice of title is
more likely to coincide with what users, publishers, indexers, and public service
librarians consider to be a title. While all catalogers know that conferences
have names, others who work with or consult conference publications seem to
agree that conferences have titles, not names.
Monograph catalogers of conference publications are not the only catalogers
prone to considering an author-like name appearing on a chief source to be
also the title proper appearing on the chief source. There are analogies to
this approach in the cataloging of certain works issued by artists (e.g., Cindy
Sherman : Photoarbeiten 1975-1995, and Ansel Adams : classic images)
and of certain literary works, especially those containing collections of poems,
short fiction, or essays (e.g., Carl Sandburg : adventures of a poet,
and O. Henry : stories).
As the Task Group's discussion of this issue progressed it became apparent
that both approaches toward title selection were valid, each for a different
type of catalog record. Further, the idea that either monograph catalogers
or serial catalogers could be persuaded, cajoled, or herded en masse into following
the title selection practices of the "other side" was almost certain
to remain an unattainable fantasy.
In recent years small, but noticeable, trends toward more monograph catalog
records for conference publications have been observed. In 1997 it was decided
that there was a distinct advantage in giving all conference publications issued
in numbered monographic series monograph cataloging treatment. More recently,
as conference publications have become widely available on the World Wide Web,
some libraries have found it advantageous to move further toward monograph
cataloging because web publishers, in general, have a tendency to treat conference
publications as individual works, or books, and thus assign each publication
of an ongoing conference a distinct URI unrelated to the URIs of other publications
from the same ongoing conference.
Perhaps this serial title vs. monograph title debate will only be resolved
several years from now when the trend toward cataloging all conference publications
as monographs has triumphed. Until that time arrives it seems that both practices
must coexist, and that no great harm has resulted from our OPACs containing
records that appear to follow two different cataloging rules.
2. Review and propose changes beyond those recommended
by CC:DA in the Major changes appendix to the rules to define categories
of minor changes in name, which would not constitute a name change (similar
to the provisions in AACR2 21.2A1 and LCRI 21.2A).
Recommendation:
The Task Group recommends that the LC issue a rule interpretation (LCRI) that
will allow a change in the order of corporate names associated with a conference
to be considered a variant name of the conference rather than a conference
name requiring a new record.
This LCRI might be accommodated by means of a revision of LCRI 24.2 (Variant
names. General rules) to add a fourth provision under the existing sentence, "A
difference is minor if the existing heading and the name in the publication
being cataloged differ only in one or more of the ways below":
4) a change in the order of corporate names within the name of a conference.
1. 111 2 Joint DoD/FAA/NASA Conference on Aging Aircraft
411 2 Joint NASA/FAA/DoD Conference on Aging Aircraft
411 2 Joint FAA/DoD/NASA Conference on Aging Aircraft
2. 111 2 SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Workshop on Graphics Hardware
411 2 Eurographics/SIGGRAPH Workshop on Graphics Hardware
Discussion:
The ALA/CC:DA proposal to change rule 24.1C was discussed at the Oct. 2001
Meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (JSC). The
result of that discussion was a request that ALA withdraw the proposal. While
there was some support for a few of the specific proposals, there was very
little support for the proposal as a whole. This development altered the Task
Group's deliberations in two ways. In addition to considering changes that
would move beyond the ALA proposal to JSC, the group could now restudy the
specific recommendations of the proposal to JSC. Additionally, the fact that
JSC had just requested that a number of rule proposals be withdrawn indicated
to this group that any recommendations it might eventually propose should be
in the form of LCRI proposals, not proposals to change AACR itself.
Even in this Task Group there seemed to be minimal support for the more radical
specifics of the ALA proposal (i.e., 24.1C1 d), e), f), and g), all of which
dealt in some way with addition, deletion, or change of the names of higher
bodies or conference sponsors within a heading). There was more support for
looking again at 24.1C1 a) of that proposal, which specified several minor
changes to names that could be considered extensions of the "representation
of words" type of name variation. (Two other changes proposed by ALA/CC:DA
(24.1C1 b) and c)) would only have transferred two specific provisions of LCRI
24.2 to the rules themselves, so no further consideration of them was necessary.)
While there was support among some members of the Task Group for expanding
the number of minor name variants specified in LCRI 24.2, Minor Changes
of Name, 1, in the end there was insufficient support for recommending
the addition of any one specific type. Therefore, no recommendations are being
made as a result of these expansive and lengthy deliberations.
The one recommendation being made by the Task Group originated as a proposal
from Paul J. Weiss, UCSD, to the Library of Congress for a new LCRI. The proposal
was forwarded from LC/CPSO, accompanied by an indication that LC considered
it a promising idea for an LCRI. The Task Group agrees.
3. Review and propose changes to the rules to
provide clear guidelines on how to record the abbreviated form of the year
in the name of a conference when establishing the heading for that conference.
(For example, EuroGP'99 vs. EuroGP '99)
Recommendations:
A. Revise LCRI 24.1 under "Punctuation" to add
a specific instruction for the form of name of a conference containing the
abbreviated or full form of the year of the conference. This addition to the
LCRI might read:
If the form of name selected as the heading for a conference contains
the abbreviated or full form of the year, regularize the spacing by including
one space between any word in the name and the year, regardless of whether
an apostrophe or other character is utilized as a substitute for a portion
of the year
1. Source: WADS'99
Heading: WADS '99
2. Source: CSD2000
Heading: CSD 2000
B. Revise LCRI 1.0C by adding a section containing specific
instructions for recording the name of a conference containing the abbreviated
or full form of the year. The instructions for recording the name of the conference
in the description would be identical to the instructions for constructing
the heading for the conference.
Discussion:
Publishers' practices for the presentation of conference names vary. Even
a single publisher may not have a consistent practice. For those conference
names that consist of an abbreviation, acronym, initialism, and/or word(s)
in combination with an abbreviated form of the year, practices seem especially
inconsistent. Creative title page and cover design and typography may present
additional complexities to the cataloger trying to record or establish the
name of a conference. It would not be unusual for a cataloger to have to decide
amongst, say, TACAS '99, TACAS'99, and TACAS 99 when recording a conference
name, because the cataloger is finding it difficult to determine the exact
form shown in a title page graphic presentation.
Lacking any specific guidance for standardizing the recording of such conference
names, catalogers have attempted to record them as they appear on the chief
source or elsewhere in a publication. Non-standardized practice in description
has resulted in non-standardized name headings for these same conferences.
Not only can we find NACO records reflecting different styles for these conference
names, but we can find groups of NACO records for a single ongoing conference
using different approaches. In these cases, inconsistencies can result in needlessly
muddled OPAC browse displays for publications of an ongoing conference, unreliable
and unpredictable results for OPAC keyword searches of conference names, and
duplicate name authority records under variant forms of a name. It is possible
to come up with numerous examples of problematic records, but these examples,
showing lists of actual NACO headings in standard display order, illustrate
the nature of the problem:
Example 1.
CP 2002 (2002 : Ithaca, N.Y.)
CP '95 (1995 : Cassis, France)
CPO/DO(D) Seminar
CPSPP'97 (1997 : Beijing, China)
CPUC Energy Symposium (1980 : Stanford University)
CP96 (1996 : Cambridge, Mass.)
CP'97 (1997 : Linz, Austria)
CP98 (1998 : Pisa, Italy)
Example 2.
ECOOP '97 (1997 : Jyväskylä, Finland)
ECOOP '98 (1998 : Brussels, Belgium)
ECOOP '99 (1999 : Lisbon, Portugal)
ECOOP'98 SCM-8 Symposium (1998 : Brussels, Belgium)
ECOOP'99 SCM-9 Symposium (1999 : Toulouse, France)
In addition to those conference names that include in their names a two-digit
designation of the year of the conference, preceded in some cases by an apostrophe,
similar types have been identified and must be mentioned. Names that include
either a slash or a dash between the name portion of the heading and the year
portion of the heading (e.g., Electro/88 and Expomicro-86) might appear also
to require specific instructions. But, while these headings may be problematic
in some settings or systems, in any system conforming to NACO normalization
the presence or absence of a dash or slash in lists of headings would not be
problematic. Thus, no specific provision for this type of conference name heading
is being recommended.
While the written charge to this group mentioned only the abbreviated form
of the year in a conference name, a Mar. 2001 revision to LCRI 24.7A extended
the provisions of that LCRI to the full form of the year as well. A corresponding
extension to this third charge was assumed to be appropriate.
4. Explore options for ensuring that runs of
conference publications are classed in the same classification number when
cataloging them as monographs. For example, recording the class number
in authority records for conference names
Recommendations:
A. In the NACO authority record for a named ongoing conference
a PCC participant using LC classification should have the option of including
a classification number in MARC 053 (LC Classification Number) so that all
publications associated with that conference might be easily and readily gathered
together, whenever appropriate, in the same LC classification number, by all
catalogers.
1. This practice could apply both to ongoing conferences represented in the
NACO file by a single record for all occurrences of the conference, and to
ongoing conferences represented in the file by separate records for each occurrence.
Examples illustrating possible MARC 053 construction:
a. 111 2b IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision
053 b4 $aTA1634.I3 $5 NIC
b. 111 2b COCOON '97 $d (1997 : $c Shanghai, China)
053 b4 $aQA75.5.C549 $5 MCM
2. A PCC/NACO special interest group consisting of representatives from cataloging
agencies wishing to participate in this effort should be established and charged
with developing and maintaining policies and procedures for participants.
B. No change to the present content designation of MARC
21 Format for Authority Data is required to allow full implementation
of this recommendation. But, to enable proper implementation of this recommendation,
it is further recommended that the proposed PCC/NACO special interest group
be assigned the responsibility for drafting and recommending to LC all appropriate
MARC and MARC-related documentation, as well as any other documentation for
this new procedure. Documentation in need of revision would include, but
not necessarily be limited to:
1. Minor revision of the MARC authority format's 053 "Field definition
and scope";
2. Addition of one or more conference examples to the MARC 053 "Guidelines
for applying content designators";
3. Revision of the blue LC Guidelines page for MARC 053 by including
in the "NACO" section the language necessary to permit implementation;
4. Revision of the yellow Descriptive Cataloging Manual, Z1 page for
MARC 053 by adding to its "NACO practice" section a paragraph containing
the language necessary to permit implementation; and also, revision of the "Use
and order of 053 fields" section of this same page.
Discussion:
A number of libraries with significant collections of conference publications
have also a strong interest in classifying together, in a logical sequence,
all publications issued by the ongoing conferences represented in their collections.
Catalogers at MIT, Rutgers, UCLA, and UCSD, for example, have similar policies
and procedures for maintaining chronological sequences of these materials for
their library users. These sequences may ignore changes in the choice of main
entry from one publication to the next, and they usually retain the same base
call number through any conference name changes that might occur. Currently
there exists no mechanism for all the libraries sharing this common interest
and practice to collaborate or to share readily the base classification numbers
they establish for a particular ongoing conference. It was this expressed desire
to collaborate in a shared endeavor that influenced the discussions of charge
4 by the members of the Task Group.
The group's initial discussions of this charge concentrated on identifying
the conference universe that might be covered by any recommendations. That
universe could potentially have included unnamed conferences as well as named
conferences; ongoing conferences gathered under a single name, and conferences
with name changes; and ongoing conferences represented by a single NAR, as
well as those with a separate NAR for each occurrence of the conference.
If any recommendation were to apply to unnamed conferences (e.g., those ongoing,
but unnamed conference publications issued by the Society of Photo-optical
Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)), there would have to be some mechanism for
providing guidance to catalogers that would not involve NACO name authority
records. The group considered potential revisions to the Subject Cataloging
Manual (SCM): Shelflisting (sections G230, G740, and G820, for example)
and to the Subject Cataloging Manual: Classification (sections F240,
and F632, for example).
This approach suffered from several drawbacks, among them being that it would
be difficult to precisely determine which unnamed conference publications might
be covered by any SCM guidelines, and that the SCM volumes were neither the
most obvious nor the most convenient place for NACO catalogers not regularly
cataloging publications of unnamed conferences to encounter guidance in their
classification. And LC, which had already indicated its reluctance to impose
any charge 4 recommendations on its own catalogers, could certainly not be
asked to draft and maintain SCM provisions that LC itself would not follow.
Thus, it made sense to eliminate unnamed conferences from consideration.
Limiting this conference universe to only named conferences, allowed the group's
discussion to shift to the one other approach that seemed workable, which also
happened to be the one possible approach given as an example in the charge
to the Task Group: "
recording the class number in authority records
for conference names."
Passing consideration was given to adding such conference classification guidelines
to NACO Participant's Manual, possibly to the MARC 053 page(s), but
that technique seemed inadequate and surely inappropriate without there being
revision of the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data itself first.
In considering the MARC authorities format documentation for (LC) classification
guidelines, the Task Group looked at three possibilities, the 050, the 053,
and the 09X. The MARC 053 seemed easily the best of the three. Because any
classification guidelines could apply to all publications related to an ongoing
conference a field defined for a classification number (053), not a call number
(050), would be appropriate. Definition of a new local classification field
(i.e., 093) seemed unnecessarily problematic, especially considering that the
second indicator "4" of the MARC 053 had already been defined for
classification numbers "assigned by an agency other than LC."
The classification number recording mechanism being considered for conference
publications seemed similar to the mechanism shown by examples already existing
in the pages of MARC 053, especially the "Martha Grimes" and the "$5
DI" examples. The fact that utilization of the MARC 053 could apparently
proceed with no changes to the MARC format's content designation meant that
the Task Group needed to look no further for a solution to its fourth charge.
The Library of Congress has already indicated that it is not in a position
to instruct its catalogers to implement the use of the MARC 053 for classification
numbers of ongoing conferences. But a minimal amount of revision to the existing
MARC 053 documentation would enable implementation of this approach by other
PCC member libraries.
Because implementation of this first recommendation would be the first NACO
use of the MARC 053 for any name headings other than those of literary authors,
LC has indicated concerns about the specifics of any implementation. Some idea
of how many and which PCC participants might participate would be desirable.
LC also has expressed concerns about maintenance of this information. For these
reasons at least, establishing a PCC participant group of some sort would be
appropriate, especially through implementation. Following implementation, periodic
assessment of the success of the MARC 053 practice by PCC SCS would be appropriate.
Members of the PCC SCS Task Group on Conference Publications:
Robert Bremer (OCLC)
Robert B. Ewald (LC/CPSO)
Sara Shatford Layne (UCLA)
Dajin Sun (Yale University)
David C. Van Hoy (MIT, Chair)
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