Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access
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Library of Congress Liaison Report to
Submitted by Barbara B. Tillett, LC Liaison to ALA/ALCTS/CCS/CC:DA
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Also available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file
LC exhibit booth at ALA
The Library’s exhibit booth is no. 1137 in the Georgia World Congress Center.
Recruitment
Recruiters from the Library, will be available at the ALA Placement Center in the Georgia World Congress Center from noon on Friday, June 14 through 1:00 p.m. on Monday, June 17, 2002, to provide ALA attendees the most current information on jobs that are available at the Library. Print copies of current vacancy announcements will be available, and information will be provided on how to apply online. Prospective applicants may access information on all available jobs through the ALA Placement Center Web site at
http://www.ala.org prior to and during the conference.
Mail Delivery at the Library of Congress
The Library resumed accepting United States Postal Service deliveries on March 4, following baseline testing of the environmental and health effects of handling irradiated mail. No USPS mail was delivered to the Library from October 17, 2001, after anthrax spores were discovered in the Hart Senate Building, through March 3. First-class mail and flats were diverted to facilities in Ohio and New Jersey to be irradiated to destroy anthrax spores.
Much of the mail received since March 4 appears to have suffered damage from the irradiation process. The Preservation Research and Testing Division, Preservation Directorate, has examined this mail to determine the extent of damage. The Copyright Office, Acquisitions Directorate, and Cataloging in Publication Division have developed triage procedures to process damaged collections materials delivered by USPS according to whether the items are salvageable or must be replaced. The Acquisitions Directorate notified all vendors of the mail embargo and encouraged them to email invoices whenever feasible.
Loss of revenue from copyright registration fees that are backlogged in undelivered, irradiated mail prompted the Library to request a supplemental appropriation of $7.5 million for the Copyright Office.
Mail for the Library is now delivered to an off-site mail handling facility in Prince George’s County, Md., where it can be double-checked for safety before it arrives on Capitol Hill. It is expected that normal levels of mail receipts at the Library will not resume for several months.
LC Honorees
Jean Hirons, the CONSER Coordinator, is the recipient of the 2002 Margaret Mann Citation. The award is a citation and a $2,000 scholarship donated in the recipient’s honor by OCLC, Inc., to the library school of her choice. It recognizes outstanding professional achievement in cataloging or classification either through publication of significant professional literature, participation in professional cataloging associations, demonstrated excellence in teaching cataloging, or valuable contributions to practice in individual libraries. The award will be presented at the ALCTS Membership Meeting and President’s Program, Monday, June 17, 9:30 am, Sheraton Atlanta, Capitol North and Center Ballrooms.
Sally McCallum, chief of NDMSO, is the recipient of the 2002 LITA/Gaylord Award for Achievement in Library and Information Technology. The purpose of the award is to recognize distinguished leadership in technology, notable developments of applications of technology, superior accomplishment in research or education or original contribution to literature in the field. The award will be presented at the LITA President's Program, Monday, June 17, 2:00-4:00 pm, Atlanta Hilton Hotel and Towers-East Ballroom.
LC People on the Move
Peter Young, former Chief of the Cataloging Distribution Service, has now been named director of the National Agricultural Library.
Winston Tabb, Associate Librarian for Library Services, will be retiring from LC at the end of August and taking a position as Dean of University Libraries and Sheridan Director of the Milton Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University.
David A. Smith, chief of the Decimal Classification Division, retired from the Library on May 3. Until the position of chief can be filled through a national recruitment search, the chief’s duties will be carried out by Library staff on temporary promotions to the position of acting assistant chief. The current acting assistant chief is Dennis McGovern.
LIBBRARY SERVICES
Cataloging Directorate
Cataloging Policy & Support Office
AACR2 Amendments 2002. The Library of Congress will implement AACR2 Amendments 2002 on December 1, 2002. LC’s implementation date is being postponed from the previously-announced September 1, 2002, date due to the delay in the publication of the amendments package by ALA Publishing and concerns expressed from constituents about adequate time to schedule training before implementation. The official notice from Beacher Wiggins, Director for Cataloging, LC, follows:
“In response to concerns raised by our colleagues and constituents, I have determined that the Library of Congress will delay implementation of AACR2 Amendments 2002 until December 1, 2002. We are postponing from the previously-announced September 1, 2002, date due to the delay in the publication of the amendments package by ALA Publishing and concerns expressed from constituents about adequate time needed to schedule training before implementation. We had chosen the September implementation date to accommodate requests for LC to implement as soon as possible. The additional lead time should give the various communities that will adopt the new Amendments sufficient time to prepare.“Revisions to the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations related to the amendments package will be published in late summer. Discussions are still ongoing about LC and Program for Cooperative Cataloging practice for a few rules; I want LC practice and PCC practice to be harmonized. Information related to bringing these practices into alignment will be available on the Web site of LC’s Cataloging Policy and Support Office, with links to the PCC Web site, in August. This information will then be included in the fall update to the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations.
“Any further concerns should be addressed to me or to the Cataloging Policy and Support Office.
“Beacher Wiggins
Director for Cataloging
Library of Congress”
LCRIs. Revisions to the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations related to the amendments package will be published in late summer. Discussions are still ongoing about LC and Program for Cooperative Cataloging practice for a few rules; that information will be available on the Web site of LC’s Cataloging Policy and Support Office in August and then will be included in the fall update to the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations.
ALA/LC Romanization Tables on the Web. The scanned text of the 1997 edition of the ALA-LC Romanization Tables is now available as PDF files on the CPSO Web site at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html. There are links to the tables under “The Latest News from CPSO” and under “Cataloging Tools and Documentation.”
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Please see the CPSO Web page for new guidance on distinguishing between these languages.
Bicentennial Action Plan
Beacher Wiggins, Director for Cataloging, Library of Congress, will chair the second Conference 2000 Action Plan Forum on Sunday, June 16, 10:00 am-12:00 pm, Omni Hotel at CNN-Greenwood Room. The Forum will provide an update on progress in carrying out the 29 work items in “Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan.” This Plan stems directly from recommendations made during the Library’s Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium, November 15-17, 2000. The plan can be viewed on the Conference Web site at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/conference.html
Pinyin Romanization
Review and correction of LC’s Chinese bibliographic records which reside in RLIN has essentially been completed. The task of identifying, reviewing and converting Wade-Giles strings and headings, and headings for old forms of Chinese conventional place names on older Chinese records and non-Chinese records in the LC database will continue for the rest of the calendar year.
In light of comments received from both within and outside the Library, pinyin romanization guidelines have been revised and sent to ALA’s Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Material for approval.
Cataloging Directorate Statistics
Cataloging (Books and Serials) Production
FY02 through March FY01
LC Full/Core-Level Cataloging 78,924 176,636
Copy Cataloging 15,364 31,652
Minimal-Level Cataloging 15,101 23,204
Collection-Level Cataloging 2,090 4,073
TOTAL records created 111,479 235,565
TOTAL volumes cataloged N/A 270,801
Authority Records
Names 38,166 91,880
Series 3,405 8,279
Subjects 3,131 6,933
TOTAL 44,702 107,092
For more information contact: Beacher J. Wiggins, Director for Cataloging, Library of Congress, LM 642, Washington, DC 20540-4300 (telephone: 202-707-5333 or Internet: bwig@loc.gov).
Rare Book Cataloging
For the first four months of Calendar 2002, the Rare Book Team, Special Materials Cataloging Division, processed 2924 items from various collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, the Prints and Photographs Division, and the Law Library.
The Pforzheimer and Shapiro Bruce Rogers collections are processed. Bruce Rogers was an American type and book designer, associated with the Riverside Press and Houghton Mifflin. The two collections, previously owned by Carl Pforzheimer and Solomon Reuben Shapiro, include book and non-book material by and related to the artist. The collection can be accessed with the following name (710) searches in the LC online catalog: Pforzheimer Bruce Rogers Collection (Library of Congress); Shapiro Bruce Rogers Collection (Library of Congress).
The YA books (about 4500 volumes total) are significantly processed, except for roughly 1,900 Latin, Spanish, non-book, and bound-with volumes. The YA books are a diverse collection of largely 18th- and 19th-century Continental titles in a variety of subjects, with French and Italian imprints predominant.
Monographs in the Drake Boston pamphlet collection (over 750 volumes) are processed (less than 100 serial volumes remaining). This collection of 19th-century local history (Boston, Mass.) was collected by antiquarian and historian Samuel Gardner Drake. The collection is accessible via a name (710) search in the LC online catalog of: Samuel Gardner Drake Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress).
Other collections completed since May 2001 include Clarence Darrow (American lawyer), Lester Douglas (American book and graphic designer), Victor Hammer (American artist and printer), A. Edward Newton (American writer and book collector), Stone and Kimball (Chicago fine press), Wagner-Camp (Western Americana), and a collection of eighteenth-century Russian law decrees.
The Copyright Paperback project resumed during the spring/summer of 2001. The cataloging is of encoding level 3 (or abbreviated level) records that are not distributed outside the Library but which take heavy advantage of copy cataloging found in OCLC and RLIN. The records feature genre term access for romance, science fiction, children’s stories, mysteries, etc. The collection currently stands at over 21,000 volumes and is continuously growing.
National Services Directorate
Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS)
CDS Centennial
Join us in the LC exhibit booth daily at 12:30 to 1:30 to celebrate 100 years of delivering bibliographic and cataloging products to libraries of the world. We’ll demonstrate Classification Web, our newest Web-based service, screen the CDS Centennial Video, raffle teddy bears (also 100 years old!), and celebrate on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a Centennial Cake.
Library of Congress Classification on the World Wide Web
The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) will give demonstrations of Classification Web, a new fee-based service offering web access to LC Classification schedules and LC Subject Headings to libraries worldwide. CDS is now taking orders for the product. Demonstrations of Classification Web will take place in the booth theater at 12:30 PM daily and throughout the day at one of the CDS modules.
CDS staff will also demonstrate Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Plus throughout the day at one of CDS’s modules. The CDS booth display will feature the new classification schedules published in 2001-2002.
Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium (Nov. 2000)
CDS published the conference proceedings, which will be available at ALA. The published version includes full text versions of the 22 papers, which cover such topics as the library catalog and the Web, assessing current library standards for bibliographic control and Web access, future directions, experimentation, and partnerships.
Operations Directorate
LC Integrated Library System (LC ILS)
The Library of Congress upgraded its integrated library management system to Voyager 2000.1.3 in February 2002. The redesigned Web OPAC offers greater flexibility and some new features for users. All help files have been revised and updated to assist users in navigating the LC Online Catalog. The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS/BPH) will migrate to the LC ILS later this year.
Web Authorities. The Library of Congress is pleased to announce the pilot of a new feature, Web Authorities, that will provide access to LC authority data via the Web. LC will make this feature available on a trial basis beginning July 1, 2002. Name, subject, and title authority records, (including series authority records) will be available to search, display, and download at this address: http://authorities.loc.gov
For more information about Web Authorities please visit the LC ILS FAQ at: http://www.loc.gov/ils/ilsfaq.html
The Operations Directorate and the ILS Coordinating Committee are working with the Library’s ILS vendor, Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., to improve system performance in order to increase the number of simultaneous external users.
The LC Database resides on a Sun E10000 server and includes nearly 12.5 million bibliographic records; approximately 12.5 million holdings records; over 12.9 million item records; and approximately 5.4 million authority records. The LC Online Catalog is available at: http://catalog.loc.gov
Additional information can be found on the public ILS home page at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ils/
Network Development & MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)
Z39.50 International Next Generation. The ZING initiative, “Z39.50-International: Next Generation,” originated a year ago. It covers a number of initiatives by Z39.50 implementers to make the intellectual/semantic content of Z39.50 more broadly available through a variety of measures, and to lower barriers to implementation while preserving the existing intellectual contributions of Z39.50 that have accumulated over nearly 20 years. Current ZING initiatives are SRW/U, ZOOM, ez3950, and Zeerex. Some (for example, SRW/U) seek to evolve Z39.50 to a more mainstream protocol, while for others (e.g. ZOOM, the Z39.50 Object Oriented model) the purpose is to preserve the existing protocol but hide its complexity. Zeerex, an XML re-write of Z39.50 Explain, falls into both categories.
Z39.50 Gateway. LC“s WWW/Z39.50 Gateway now contains more than 500 databases on 400 servers; 115 of the databases listed are non-US, from over 18 countries. Servers of eighteen different library vendors are represented.
Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS). The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard is an XML schema designed for the purpose of describing digital objects in library collections. The schema provides a standard form for the recording and transmission of structural, administrative, and technical metadata. Version 1.0 of the schema is currently in the final stages of review. The development of METS is an initiative of the Digital Library Federation. NDMSO is participating in the development effort and also serves as the maintenance agency for the standard. A METS Editorial Board has been established and had its first meeting in May 2002. An NDMSO staff member will serve on the board. Additional information can be found at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/.
Metadata for Still Images (MIX). NDMSO, in partnership with the NISO Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images Standards Committee and other interested experts, is developing an XML schema for a set of technical data elements required to manage digital image collections. The schema provides a format for interchange and/or storage of the data specified in the NISO Draft Standard Data Dictionary: Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images (Version 1.2). This schema is currently in draft status and is being referred to as “NISO Metadata for Images in XML (NISO MIX)”. Additional information can be found at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mix/.
MARCXML. Working with several agencies, an official XML version of the complete MARC 21 format and an architecture of transformations and programs that will be supplied and maintained by LC have been published at http://www.loc.gov/marcxml. The Open Archives Initiative is interested in using this official XML for MARC with the new version of the OAI protocol. LC will be providing a transformation from the current XML DTDs that were developed and published in 1997. The new XML schema B called Aslim@ because of the approach used — is viewed as a communication and transport vehicle, while the previous DTD was especially useful for internal operations.
Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). The Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) is an XML schema developed in the Library of Congress’ Network Development and MARC Standards Office, with a broad review and input group external to LC, intended as a descriptive bibliographic element set that may be used for a variety of purposes particularly for library applications. It is intended to be able to carry selected data from existing MARC records as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records. It includes a subset of MARC fields, inheriting the MARC definitions, and uses language-based tags rather than numeric ones, in some cases regrouping elements from the MARC 21 bibliographic format. MODS may potentially be used as: a Z39.50 Next Generation specified format; an extension schema to METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard); to represent metadata for harvesting (e.g. Open Archives Initiative); for original resource description in XML syntax; for representing a simplified MARC record in XML; for metadata in XML that may be packaged with an electronic resource.
MARC 21. NDMSO published eight proposals and one discussion paper for consideration at the June 2002 MARC Advisory Committee meetings. The 2002 edition of the MARC Code List for Geographic Areas should be released to the public in July 2002. It contains several new geographic codes, such as codes for celestial bodies and the newly formed country of East Timor. The MARC 21 Web site http://www.loc.gov/marc/ continues to be updated. The Web page of MARC 21 translations and MARC Records, Systems and Tools has also been continuously updated to include up-to-date information for MARC 21 users.
In 2001 NDMSO commissioned a study by Tom Delsey to examine MARC 21 from three different perspectives: the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) model, the AACR cataloging code model, and a set of user tasks that the format might logically support. The study is now available in PDF format at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marc-functional-analysis/home.html. The study will be an important tool in development of the MARC 21 formats. A new document, Displays for Multiple Versions from MARC 21 and FRBR, has recently been added to the Web site at http://www.loc.gov/marc/marc-functional-analysis/multiple-versions.html. This Web page includes display record examples for multiple manifestations of the same work, single record for manifestations of an expression, and hierarchical display examples.
NDMSO has, with the assistance of librarians in Latin America, prepared Spanish language translations of several sections of the MARC 21 Web site http://www.loc.gov/marc/marcspa.html. In cases where no Spanish language translation of a document exists, the Spanish site links to the English original.
Normalization and folding rules. A group at LC headed by NDMSO is in the process of revising existing normalization and folding rules for Latin script based cataloging data, as well as drafting for the first time rules for other scripts including, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean. Normalization involves insuring that various encodings of modified letters are consistent. Folding involves replacing modified letters or special characters with unmodified or simplified forms for certain activities, such as indexing (for example, an Ae@ ligature might be replaced with the normal letters "a" and "e"). LC plans to make its conclusions available to others for the Unicode-based versions of their software. Endeavor will use them for the new version of Voyager. LC’s normalization and folding rules should be available via the Web later this year.
Library Wide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Implementation. Funding has recently become available to purchase server-based GIS software to be used throughout the Library (it is currently available only on stand-alone PCs in the Geography and Map Division). The Music Division and G&M are working on pilot projects that will use GIS technology. Several other divisions have expressed interest in creating applications using GIS. A project charter is being worked on to allow for all interested parties to follow the development and progress of GIS within the Library.
Public Service Collections Directorate
Prints and Photographs Division
Thesaurus for Graphic Materials Updated.
After a year-long software upgrade process, new terms are being added again to both the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials: Subject Terms (TGM I) and Genre and Physical Characteristics (TGM II). Efforts continue to provide more stable access via the Web. A full list of terms added since July 2001 is available via the TGM home pages:
TGM I http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/
and TGM II http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm2/
Item-level Still Picture Records Distributed via CDS.
In January 2002, P&P began distributing its item-level catalog records through the MDS-Visual Materials service in CDS. MDS-Visual Material subscribers can expect to receive approximately 5,000 of these records annually. A retrospective file of approximately 45,000 similar records is anticipated to be distributed later in 2002.
OTHER NEWS
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Agence bibliographique nationale
BnF authority records on the Web
The Bibliothèque nationale de France offers a new service on its Web site: searching its authority records and RAMEAU subject headings. This tool will be useful to librarians for easier cataloguing — as well as to researchers wanting to start and conduct their bibliographic researches most efficiently. This service is on free access in the “Informations pour les professionnels” section and on the RAMEAU site.
This implement allows direct access, without searching the catalogue, to all of the BnF authority records files: personal and corporate names, and uniform titles records (created when cataloguing printed documents that entered the library collections since 1970) and also records of the national RAMEAU subject authority list.
Another interface, with specific functions, allows — through direct access to the RAMEAU site — searching either the whole RAMEAU subject authority list or, as search limits, some of its sub-sections, including subdivisions, LCSH equivalents and domains.
Records can be displayed in public, UNIMARC or INTERMARC format.
Records, searched through this implement, can be saved in local systems from the CD-ROM Les notices d’autorité des imprimés de BN-OPALE PLUS.
A full description of authority records and their development is also available in the “Informations pour les professionnels” section and on the RAMEAU Web site.
Web addresses:
- BnF Web Site
http://www.bnf.fr
- RAMEAU Web Site
http://rameau.bnf.fr
- Informations pour les professionnels
http://www.bnf.fr/pages/zNavigat/frame/infopro.htm
For further information:
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Direction des services et des réseaux
Service de coordination bibliographique
Quai François Mauriac 75706 Paris Cedex 13
FRANCE
Fabrice Blondeau
Tel.: 33 (0)1 53 79 59 95
Fax: 33 (0)1 53 79 81 50
Mail: coordination-bibliographique@bnf.fr