BCC2010/Auth/2

MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
AUTHORITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Business Meeting Report

San Diego, Calif. – Monday, March 22, 2010, 3:30-5:00PM


Members present: Damian Iseminger (chair), Linda Blair, Paul Cauthen, Neil Hughes, Mary Huismann, Casey Mullin, Scott Phinney, Thomas Pease, Tomoko Shibuya, Michi Hoban (LC representative)
Visitors present: 23 

After approval of the 2009 minutes, chair Damian Iseminger announced that Linda Blair would be rotating off of the Authorities Subcommittee.  Damian thanked Linda for her participation on the subcommittee and for contributing to many of the endeavors that BCC has pursued during her 4 years of service.

The chair reviewed the achievements and activities of the subcommittee for the past year.  This included the completion of the MLA Statement on Authority Control in June 2009, approved by the MLA Board at their September 2009 meeting, and the BCC response prepared jointly by the Authorities Subcommittee and the Subject Access Subcommittee to the IFLA draft document Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data.  The chair, as liaison to the ALA ALCTS-CCS/LITA Authority Control Interest Group (ACIG) and to OLAC’s Cataloging Policy Committee (CAPC), also reported on the activities of these two groups at ALA Annual 2009 in Chicago, Ill. and ALA Midwinter 2010 in Boston, Mass.

The remaining hour of the meeting was given over to discussion of a proposed Musical Works Project for music falling outside the Western art music canon.  BCC, through the report of the 2008 Working Group on Work Records for Music, had previously tackled the concept of a “work record” for Western art music, but had specifically excluded music falling outside that boundary, mostly due to time and expertise constraints.  With the recent finalization of the text of RDA: Resource Description and Access and a release date set for the summer of 2010, the chair felt it would be a good idea to revisit the idea of work records for music, but this time for music excluded from the 2008 report.  After some preliminary discussions with Authorities Subcommittee members, it was decided that some reading was in order to find some sort of common understanding about the concept of a musical work and how it is treated bibliographically.  In order to address this need, the chair assigned to the subcommittee a group of core readings to be discussed at the Authorities business meeting.

The discussion generated by the assigned readings was wide-ranging and involved contributions from both subcommittee members and visitors.  Topics discussed included the various definitions of a work, both at a conceptual and practical level; the attributes of musical works and their expressions, many of which went beyond those explicated in the subcommittee readings; the boundaries of musical works and their expressions; and the suitability of the FRBR concepts of work and expression for music falling outside the Western canon.  While the discussions did not necessarily lead to consensus on the topics discussed, it did stimulate thought on the ways in which this project could move forward.  Further discussion of this project among subcommittee members will continue via email and on the private BCC wiki.

Submitted by Damian Iseminger, Chair

Return to the 2010 Documents Menu
Return to BCC Historical Documents Menu
Return to BCC Home Page

Last updated April 15, 2010