MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

AUTHORITIES SUBCOMMITTEE

Business Meeting Report

Philadelphia, Pa. – Friday, February 11, 2011, 3:30-5:00PM

Members present: Damian Iseminger (chair), Paul Cauthen, Neil Hughes, Mary Huismann, Casey Mullin, Scott Phinney, Thomas Pease, Raymond Schmidt, Michi Hoban (LC representative)

Visitors present: 22

After approval of the 2010 minutes, chair Damian Iseminger announced that Mary Huismann would be rotating off of the Authorities Subcommittee. Iseminger thanked Huismann for her participation on the subcommittee and for contributing to several BCC task forces during her 4 years of service.

The chair reviewed the activities of members of the subcommittee for the past year. Mary Huismann and Damian Iseminger participated in the drafting of BIBCO Standard Records for scores and sound recordings. Neil Hughes, Damian Iseminger, Casey Mullin, and Raymond Schmidt served on the BCC Task Force to Create Expression Record Examples. Iseminger also served on the BCC Task Force for Best Practices for 38X fields. Finally, Huismann, Iseminger, Mullin, and Thomas Pease were testers in the U.S. Libraries National RDA Test. 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 2010 in Washington, D.C. and ALA Midwinter 2011 in San Diego, Calif.

At the last business meeting in San Diego, the subcommittee reviewed the attributes of the FRBR entities works and expressions in preparation for a project to develop guidelines for the construction of work records for music falling outside the Western-art music canon. Because of more urgent needs, particularly as regards possible revisions to RDA, the project has been temporarily shelved.

The subcommittee reviewed and discussed the work of the 38X Best Practices Task Force and the Expression Record Example Task Force. Particular attention was paid to the difficulty of creating unique expression access points and expression records using the MARC Authorities Format, the degree of desirability of unique expression access points, and the need for a detailed best practices document concerning the construction of expression access points.

Following this, a discussion took place discussing the experience of subcommittee members in using RDA during the U.S. National Libraries Test, with the goal being to identify possible revisions to RDA instructions concerning musical works and expressions. Two major issues were identified. The first was a lack of distinction between the recording of work and expression attributes and using those attributes to help construct a work or expression access point. The second was the dichotomy within RDA between arrangements, sketches, vocal/chorus scores, and translations and all other categories of musical expressions. Members of Authorities will be partnering with members of the Descriptive subcommittee to address the first issue. The need for a best practices document was also acknowledged.

In response to an idea from the NACO-Music Project to populate MARC 383 fields with thematic index numbers, Iseminger discussed the possibility of creating an authoritative list of thematic indexes that could be referenced by the field. A plan of attack will be formulated after the MLA Annual Meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 PM.

Submitted by Damian Iseminger, chair