Members present:
Mark Scharff (Chair), Joe Bartl (LC
Representative), Don Brown, Jean Harden, Steve Henry, Mark McKnight,
Patricia
Thomson; absent: Candice Feldt, David Guion
The
Subcommittee for Descriptive Cataloging held its
business meeting for 2010 on Tuesday, March 23, from 12:30-2:00 pm. The seven Subcommittee
members present were
joined by about 30 visitors. As
with
2009’s meeting, Resource
Description and
Access (RDA) and prioritizing were the main points of
business. The Chair
began with a brief recounting of RDA-related
events since last year’s MLA
meeting, including the March meeting of the Joint Steering Committee
(JSC) that
finalized the RDA text for naming
musical works, the creation of the MLA/OLAC funnel for testing RDA, the software testing, and the
schedule for RDA publication and
testing.
Though
it’s not yet been published or tested as a code,
thoughts have turned already to RDA
revision. The JSC
has compiled a list of
“deferred issues,” features (or gaps) in the code
that were allowed to go into
the first edition but which are not supported by one or more JSC
constituencies. In
the process of
developing ALA’s
priority list for revision,
its Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) invited
cataloging
communities with liaisons to CC:DA to identify items of most interest
to them
and prioritize them. Mark
Scharff, MLA’s
liaison to CC:DA, extracted a list from the JSC document and worked
with BCC
and MLA members to assign priority and detail MLA’s concerns. He presented this document
verbally at the
CC:DA meeting at ALA Midwinter in January.
The task of the Subcommittee in this meeting was to go
through the list
and identify which BCC subcommittees in addition to Descriptive would
be
involved in developing proposals.
Members of the audience weighed in with comments and
questions.
There was a question about the timing
of the priority
list—wouldn’t it make more sense to do this after RDA has actually been published and
tested? The answer
was “yes,” but CC:DA wanted to
start the process now. MLA
certainly did
not want to miss out on input into ALA’s
priority list. Problems
identified
during the testing process can be addressed, and may actually trump
items on
the current priority list. The
Chair
reported that other communities, such as OLAC and the American
Theological
Library Association, had weighed in with their wish lists. Another factor driving
timing is the
expectation that RDA revision will
be
an ongoing process, albeit one that might require wider consultation
than that
for AACR2.
The list of
priorities can be found at http://bcc.musiclibraryassoc.org/PositionPapers/RDA_Revision_Priority_List_2009.pdf
The Authorities Subcommittee will be
invited to collaborate
on or take charge of concerns over constructing access points and of
clarifying
instructions about arrangements and adaptations.
The Subject Access Subcommittee and the
Form/Genre Task Force might offer some input on whether better
correlation
between terminology in access points and in form/genre headings can
occur. The Task
Force might help with developing a
plan for ordering instruments within the medium of performance portion
of a
preferred access point.
So
what’s next? While
work on some points must wait for availability of the RDA
text, some larger questions can be addressed now (in
particular, those surrounding then naming of popular and
“ethnic” musical
works). The free
availability of RDA this summer is
an important window
of opportunity for all. We
will also
look for feedback from the MLA/OLAC RDA testers.
Proposals should be ready for ALA Midwinter;
it can be to MLA’s advantage to be proactive rather than
reactive. A
“November-ish” date should be the goal.
The RDA discussion
consumed most of the meeting time.
The
Subcommittee was told of the availability of the draft of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Music)
for comment on the
BCC wiki; the deadline for comments is May 1.
The title of the manual leaves no doubt as to what MLA
group needs to be
looking at it.
The meeting concluded with a call for
new members, and
recognition of outgoing members Patricia Thomson, formerly of the
Juilliard
School, and Steve Henry, University of Maryland (who had accepted a
one-year
extension of his appointment to provide some continuity for RDA work).
Submitted
by Mark Scharff, Chair, SDC
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Last updated April 15, 2010