Announcements and Reports

Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR to Meet in Washington, DC

The Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, chaired by Ann Huthwaite, will meet in Washington, DC, 2-4 April 2001. Major agenda items will include revisions to Chapters 3 (cartographic materials) and 12 (serials and integrating resources) of AACR; a new appendix on major changes to a bibliographic resource that require creation of a new record; and a statement of the principles underlying AACR. An announcement of the meeting and the draft agenda is available on the JSC Web site.

Task Force Reports Approved

Reports of four CC:DA Task Forces have recently been approved. Three of these deal with proposals currently before the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, and the fourth reviews a recently promulgated metadata standard.

The Task Force on Specific Characteristics of Electronic Resources presented an interim report. The Task Force had been charged to investigate changes to the rules in AACR2 regarding the use of areas 3, 5 and 7 for recording information about specific characteristics of an electronic resource. The interim report is based on Task Force meetings and on a survey of catalogers; it presents recommendations for revising the rules, including a draft version of rule revision proposals. The basic recommendations are: (a) eliminate area 3 in Chapter 9 of AACR; (b) continue to restrict the use of area 5 to direct access resources; and (c) record information about specific characteristics (including those formerly given in area 3) in notes. The report was approved by CC:DA and will be discussed by the Joint Steering Committee at its meeting in April; the Task Force will continue working on the rule revision proposals.

The Task Force on an Appendix of Major and Minor Changes had been charged to prepare for inclusion in AACR2 an appendix on major changes which require the creation of a new bibliographic description. A first draft of such an appendix was discussed by the Joint Steering Committee at its meeting in September 2000. Following the recommendations made by JSC, the Task Force has prepared, and CC:DA has approved, a revised draft for consideration by JSC at its meeting in April.

The Task Force on the Review of Revising AACR2 to Accommodate Seriality: Rule Revision Proposals has continued to review various documents dealing with the revision of Chapter 12 of AACR2 and its expansion to cover integrating resources as well as serials. The Task Force’s comments were approved by CC:DA and forwarded to JSC for consideration at their meeting in April.

The Task Force on the VRA Core Categories has been reviewing the metadata element set for visual resources developed by the Visual Resources Association (VRA). The Task Force prepared, and CC:DA accepted, a summary report which compared the VRA Core Categories with library standards such as AACR2 and MARC 21, as well as with the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, and evaluates their effectiveness within a library bibliographic information system. The report includes a copy of Version 3.0 of the VRA standard, a compendium of examples, and a brief bibliography.

New Task Forces Appointed

Three new CC:DA Task Forces have been appointed.

The Task Force on ONIX International has been charged to review an important emerging metadata standard for electronic books. The Task Force will present an interim report at the 2001 Annual Conference and a final report at the 2002 Midwinter Meeting.

The Task Force on the Rule of Three has been charged to review proposals currently before the Joint Steering Committee to make the “rule of three” optional in AACR2, thus allowing catalogers more flexibility in recording names of responsible persons and bodies, and in providing access to those names. Although proposals will be discussed by the Joint Steering Committee at their meeting in April, the CC:DA Task Force will present its report at the 2001 Annual Conference.

The Task Force on Uniform Resource Identifiers and AACR2 has been charged to examine resource identifiers for electronic resources, to consider the role of such identifiers in bibliographic description and access, and to recommend how the rules for description in AACR2 should deal with them. The final report of the Task Force is expected to be considered at the 2002 Midwinter Meeting.

Library of Congress Hosts a Conference on “Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium: Confronting the Challenges of Networked Resources and the Web”

The Library of Congress hosted a 2 1/2-day invitational conference on “Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium: Confronting the Challenges of Networked Resources and the Web.” The home page for the conference can be found at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/. The site now includes extensive sets of recommendations from the topical discussion groups at the conference. The Library of Congress is actively seeking comments on these recommendations.

1999 Amendments to AACR2 Available as Free Download on ALA’s Web site

CHICAGO—July 27, 2000—The Canadian Library Association, the Library Association and the American Library Association will offer a free, PDF version of the 1999 amendments to Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, 1998 revision, on ALA’ Web site. The Adobe Acrobat PDF file can be downloaded at www.ala.org/editions/updates/aacr2. The Amendments 1999 are also available online in the ALA Store http://www.alastore.ala.org.

The Amendments 1999 were agreed to by the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR (JSC) at its Toronto meeting in October 1997 and its Leeds meeting in November 1998. They were approved for publication at the Brisbane meeting of the JSC in October 1999.