BCC2010/SAS/2

MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
SUBJECT ACCESS SUBCOMMITTEE
Business Meeting Minutes
San Diego – March 22, 2010

Members present: Stacey Allison-Cassin, Janet Bradford, Patty Falk, Marty Jenkins, Beth Iseminger (chair), Nancy Lorimer, Geraldine Ostrove (LC representative), Carlos Peña, Karen Peters, Hermine Vermeij
Members not present: Ralph Hartsock, Brooke Lippy, John Wagstaff

Recognition of Service

A special thank-you goes to outgoing members Stacey Allison-Cassin and John Wagstaff and to outgoing chair Beth Iseminger for their valuable contributions and time serving on this committee.

ALA report (Beth Iseminger)

Several MARBI proposals passed that are for new fields used in work/expression identification.  Two of the approved fields are for form (MARC 380) and medium of performance (MARC 382).  These new fields introduce possibilities for where genre/form and medium of performance information might go in MARC records.

ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) is beginning to study the nature of facets and how they have been used.  SAC has also discussed separate thesauri for facets which could complement genre/form access.  The SAC Genre/Form Implementation Subcommittee (SAC-SGFI) is working on statements regarding geography, language and ethnicity as facets within the context of the genre/form projects.

A small group from SAC-SGFI is analyzing existing subdivisions (authority field 185) to determine which should be made into genre/form terms.  The terms under consideration by this group are those that are not disciplinary specific.

LC is planning for the genre/form thesaurus to be a separate product, not linked to LCSH.  This brings up issues of how genre/form terms should be coded in 655 fields.  Should there be a new subfield code for the genre/form thesaurus?  Suggestions from the SAC-SGFI which PSD is discussing include defining a new indicator for the thesaurus or retaining current coding of indicator 7 + $2 with a new code for the thesaurus.

The development phase of the OCLC FAST project is complete, and the focus has now shifted to maintenance and enhancement of the FAST vocabulary.  A book on FAST by Ed O’Neill and Lois Chan is being published this spring by Libraries Unlimited.

The OLAC Best Practices Task Force is finished compiling their report, and they are looking at ways to make it public (online or otherwise).  Some revision may be necessary, depending on LC’s decisions regarding a proposed fiction/nonfiction revision to the hierarchy and a possible LC discussion paper on headings for performances.

A group from IFLA released the first draft of Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD).  This report dismissed genre/form completely and did not consider it in the realm of subject data.  It presented a very conceptual model which offers little guidance for the RDA subject chapters that still need to be written.  Both the ALA-SAC response and the MLA response criticized the report, especially for its short-sightedness regarding form/genre.

Library of Congress report (Gerry Ostrove)

LC’s Policy and Standards Division (PSD) is considering a project for adding 072 fields to subject authority records.  The 072 field contains a code for the subject category associated with the heading.  Adding 072 fields and using them in conjunction with 073 fields (subdivision use field) might make possible better machine manipulation of headings with subdivisions.  For example, it could permit computers to provide lists of free-floating subdivisions allowable under an individual heading.

The LC Music Genre/Form Project Group and the MLA/BCC Genre Form Task Force have been working together for the past year on the music portion of LC’s genre/form initiative.  So far, the groups have agreed on about 1000 genre/form headings to be included in the thesaurus.

PSD has created approximately 50,000 validation records to date at a rate of 500 new records each week.  They expect to be through all the existing subject headings by the end of 2010.  Validation records can be viewed in Classification Web and through OCLC.

Discussion of the Genre/Form Project

For the current news and discussion regarding the music genre/form project, please see the San Diego 2010 conference report from the MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force.

New Chair

The Subject Access Subcommittee welcomes Hermine Vermeij as the new chair.

Submitted by Beth Iseminger