ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section Forum
Library of Congress Working Group Report
January 13, 2008
Speakers: Diane Dates Casey, Bob Wolven, Mary Catherine Little, Mary Charles Lasater
Having just been released a few days before, the LC working group's report, On the Record [pdf], was a hot topic at the conference. Rather that walk through this session point by point. I'll try to pull out some of the highlights of this highly anticipated forum.
Changes between the draft and final report
According to the working group members present these are some significant changes:
- Suspending work on RDA is a stronger recommendation
- FAST removed so that the recommendation would not be specific [to one system]
- Recommendation 5 is improved [evidence base and LIS education]
- FRBR recommendations more concrete
Diane Dates Casey
Diane Dates Casey, 1 of 3 ALA representatives to the Working Group, was the first speaker. She challenged the library community to work on implementation of the report's recommendation. This work will be a collaborative endeavor with many involved. Diane walked us through the first part of the report: sections 1, 2, and 3.
Bob Wolven
Bob Wolven, the PCC representative to the Working Group, went through the second half of the report. At least that was the plan. But he decided to revisit the earliest part of the report with some additional ideas--an excursus of sorts. He discussed redefining the principles of bibliographic control. We have a wide array of resources that need good metadata and will not always use AACR2/MARC to describe them. People are coming at libraries in more ways. Resources not managed by librarians, e.g., Google Book Search. WorldCat.org is mixing books and articles. So, there is no one standard that will cover everything. We need to think about our standards as modular standards applied selectively. Relationships will be managed via identifiers, not uniform description. He emphasized that there was no more safe haven and that we need to stop thinking of designing for one place.
After walking us through sections 3, 4, and 5, Bob Wolven, asked us to consider the rationale of the report's recommendations with regard to its guiding principles. Do the recommendations follow the guiding principles?
Beacher Wiggins
During the question and answer period, Beacher Wiggins, Director of the ABA Directorate at the Library of Congress, gave a rundown of LC's plans. They have not made any decisions concerning the report. Three diverse groups have been formed at the Library of Congress. There will be a broad review within LC and they will react to the recommendations point by point. They will also continue to work with the working group. LC does not have a timeline, but it should be late winter or early spring.
Diane Hillmann
Diane Hillmann spoke during the Q & A session. She announced that enough funding had been received to start the DCMI/RDA work announced last May.
Mary Charles Lasater
Mary Charles Lasater gave an ALCTS update concerning the working group report. They will prepare a response to the report in the next 3-4 months. ALCTS intends to take a leadership role in the dialogue about the report.
I haven't had a chance to go through the final draft yet, or to read this post carefully, but...
"Suspending work on RDA is a stronger recommendation"?
What? So, they took one of the worst ideas in their report and made it worse?
Just my opinion. I'm not saying that RDA is perfect, not by a long shot, but I don't think that suspending work on it is useful.
If they have serious problems with RDA itself, working to fix those would be a lot more useful than suspending work on it.
It's nice that their FRBR recommendations are more concrete (though I haven't looked at that yet) - but there are already implementations of FRBR now. I know this is an LC thing, and maybe LC hasn't dived into FRBR much, but to suspend work on RDA because of LC's being behind on FRBR seems ridiculous.
Posted by: arkham | Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 09:09 AM
Hi arkham, The general tenor of the Midwinter cataloging forums was a sort of free-floating anxiety about the working group's RDA recommendation. Specifically, whether or not the Library of Congress would accept the recommendation and pull out of RDA development. Personally, I don't see that happening.
Posted by: Chris Schwartz | Friday, January 25, 2008 at 01:14 PM