CC:DA Activities at ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle

The Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) met twice at ALA Midwinter in Seattle.

On Saturday, January 20, 1:30-6:00 p.m., the main agenda item was the report of the ALA Representative to Joint Steering Committee, who reported on the October JSC meeting. For the substance of her report, see her presentation at the RDA Update Forum. In addition, CC:DA heard reports from two Task Forces, considered the future of four Task Forces; and heard a report from Betty Landesman, ALA Representative to NISO.

On Monday, January 22, 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m., the main agenda item was continued discussion on the development of RDA. This included a discussion on the compatibility of the CONSER standard record with guidelines in RDA. In other business, CC:DA heard from Donald Chatham, of ALA Publishing Services, on the development of RDA Online; and from Everett Allgood, the MARBI representative, on MARBI actions at Midwinter; and approved a proposal from the Music Library Association the expand the definition of “score” in the physical description of notated music, and to discontinue the practice of recording pages or leaves of music.

For further details and links to the documents, see the Agenda for the meeting.

RDA: Resource Description and Access Open Forum at ALA Midwinter in Seattle

You are cordially invited to attend the Resource Description and Access (RDA) Update Forum at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. This open question and answer session about Resource Description and Access (RDA) is sponsored by the ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section.

The RDA Update Forum is scheduled for Jan. 20th, Saturday from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm in the Sheraton Seattle Hotel, Grand BR B.

Three presenters will speak briefly about various aspects of RDA development.

• Beacher Wiggins on RDA from the point-of-view of the AACR Committee of Principals
• Marjorie Bloss on RDA from the point-of-view of the RDA Project Director
• Jennifer Bowen on RDA from the point-of-view of the ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR

After they’ve spoken, the rest of the time will be open to your questions.

The presentations have been posted on the JSC website in PDF format:

• Notes from the talk by Beacher Wiggins
• RDA and Project Management by Marjorie Bloss [PowerPoint slides]
• Content Update by Jennifer Bowen [PowerPoint slides]

RDA: Resource Description and Access revised draft of Chapter 3 available for comment

A revised draft of part A, chapter 3 (Carrier) of RDA is now available for comment. The draft also includes revisions to Chapter 4, Content, which are related to Chapter 3, and a glossary of terms used to record Media type, Carrier type, and Content type. A cover letter explains the background to the revision and gives guidelines for commenting; it also poses a number of specific questions for comment. To assist in the evaluation of the draft, appendices to the cover letter give a set of examples based on the draft, and mappings of the data elements from MARC 21 to RDA and from RDA to MARC 21 for those elements covered in the draft.

The draft is available at http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/5rda-parta-ch3rev.pdf

In addition, a revised version of the RDA Prospectus has been prepared, and is available at: Prospectus for RDA

The deadline for comments to the JSC is July 16, 2007, to allow time for the comments to be compiled for consideration by the JSC at their meeting on October 2007. There is also an open RDA discussion list for issues related to the development of RDA.

Comments on the draft from within the United States should be submitted to the ALA/ALCTS/CCS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA). To make comments, please use this comment form. The deadline for submission of these comments is May 14, 2007, in order to allow them to be incorporated into the ALA response by July 16.

The draft will most likely be the subject of discussion at CC:DA meetings at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Watch the CC:DA website for more information.

New ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee Appointed

John Attig has been appointed to serve as ALA’s representative to the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (JSC). Attig replaces Jennifer Bowen, who has been ALA’s representative since July 2004, effective April 2, 2007. ALA is fortunate that Attig has agreed to take on this responsibility. His long and dedicated service to the cataloging community in general and to CC:DA and MARBI in particular make him tremendously well-suited for this position. Attig has served CC:DA as a voting member on multiple occasions since 1986 and as its webmaster since 1998. In 2003, Attig was awarded the ALCTS Presidential Citation Award in recognition of his significant contributions in automating a tedious, labor-intensive document distribution process for AACR2 rule revision and standardizing the format for rule revision proposals. Although CC:DA will be sorry to lose Attig as a voting member before the end of his term, CC:DA is looking forward to working with him in his new role.

New Voting Member of CC:DA Appointed

Patricia Thurston has been appointed as a new voting member of CC:DA. Patricia is Assistant Department Head for the Catalog and Metadata Services at Yale University, as well as team leader of the Slavic & East Asian Cataloging Section. She served as an intern on CC:DA from 2004-2006, and chaired the JSC GMD/SMD Working Group in 2005-2006.

Patricia was appointed to the place on the Committee vacated when John Attig resigned to become the ALA Representative to the JSC.

Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR to Meet in Ottawa, Canada, 16-20 April 2007

The Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR will meet in Ottawa, Canada, from Monday April 16 to Friday April 20, 2007. The Committee reviewed the development process for RDA: Resource Description and Access and discussed responses to drafts of Part A of RDA; most of the discussion was devoted to Chapter 3, Carrier. An announcement of the meeting and a draft agenda are available on the JSC website.

The Committee will discuss the scope of RDA, the relationship of RDA to other standards, communication with other resource description communities, and the development of the RDA web product.

The JSC will continue its discussion of responses to Part A, Chapters 1-5 of RDA (excluding Chapter 3 and the sections of Chapter 4 that are out for review). Work will begin on the review of responses to Part A, Chapters 6 and 7; revised drafts of these chapters are scheduled to be issued for review in mid-2007. Finally, the JSC will review the Editor’s first draft of Part B (Access Point Control); based on decisions made at this meeting and discusssion of a second draft at the October 2007 JSC meeting, a draft of Part B is scheduled to be made available for review in December 2007.

The Committee of Principals for AACR will also be meeting in Ottawa, and there will be a joint meeting with the JSC to review progress on the development of RDA.

Draft Functional Requirements for Authority Data available for worldwide review

The IFLA Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records is pleased to announce that a 2nd draft of Functional Requirements for Authority Data (previously titled Functional Requirements for Authority Records) is now available for worldwide review. This draft, updated in response to comments received during the previous review, is on the IFLA web site at http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/wg-franar.htm. Comments should be sent by July 15, 2007 to:

Glenn Patton
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
6565 Kilgour Place
Dublin OH 43017-3395
Phone: +1.800.848.5878, ext. 6371 or +1.614.764.6371
Fax: +1.614.718.7187
Email: pattong@oclc.org

New Task Forces Appointed

The Task Force to Review the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles was appointed in December 2006. It is charged to prepare an interim review on the draft Statement of International Cataloguing Principles; to report to CC:DA on any significant differences between the Statement and the drafts of Resource Description and Access (RDA); and to draft the CC:DA response when the Statement is circulated for worldwide review.

The Task Force on CC:DA’s Internal and External Communication was appointed in February 2007. The Task Force is charged to assess the nature and content of CC:DA’s communication with the ALCTS/CCS membership and the cataloging community within the United States, as well as the functional requirements for the internal communication that supports the work of the committee. The Task Force was asked to make recommendations regarding changes to the internal communication structures for consideration by CC:DA at the 2007 Annual Conference.

The Task Force to Review the Draft Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) was appointed in April 2007. The Task Force is charged to prepare comments for an ALA response to this draft document.