Comments to: WebMaster.© 2002, Technical Services Special Interest Section.
Last modified: August 3, 2000.
URL: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/representatives/2000/ccda.htm
In this report I will highlight information from the Midwinter and ALA Annual meetings which is of greatest interest to law catalogers. Other information is available on-line in the form of various reports and position papers, and I will give the appropriate URLs for anyone who wants to delve into any of these areas in greater depth.
Complete minutes of the meeting are available at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/001-min.html.
Of particular interest to law catalogers:
The 2000 edition of KJ-KKZ (Law of Europe) should be available for purchase from CDS by May 2000. KBR (History of Canon Law) and KBU (Law of the Roman Catholic Church, The Holy See) are in the final stages of development. In cooperation with Islamists at Harvard Law School Center for Islamic Legal Studies, KBP (Islamic Law) is in an advanced stage of development. A draft of KBM (Jewish law) will be developed by LC and two specialists at NYU. [Now available at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/c so/kbm.html. Aaron Kupperman has been posting on the TS-SIS listserv some very important comments on the draft.]
LC will no longer be able to guarantee uniqueness of call numbers because there is no capability for reserving numbers in their new ILS. If an item is reclassed to another number, its former number may now be used for a totally different item.
October 1st is the target date for adoption of Pinyin Romanization. Check with your utility to learn how this is going to be handled.
Tillett's full report is available at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/lc001.html
Schottlaender's report was a long and detailed description of JSC decisions on a wide variety of cataloging issues, none of which was specifically law related. Many would have some impact on the types of general cataloging practices followed in law libraries (such as a whether or not a distinction should be made between a disk and a disc). Schottlaender's report is not available separately, but is summarized in great detail in the CC:DA minutes (citation given above).
Hirons gave a report on her proposal Revising AACR2 to Accommodate Seriality (available at http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/ser-rep0.html) The proposal outlines methods for treating "integrating resources" - an item which at any one time is complete in itself, but which changes over time because parts of it are removed and others added. While most catalogers are encountering this phenomenon for the first time as they deal with web-based publications, law catalogers have dealt with these problems for many, many years in our handling of monographic looseleafs. Hirons proposes to change the word "serial" to "continuing resource" in many of the rules in Chapter 12, and to make a distinction between serials and integrating resources.
Larsgaard gave a preliminary report at Midwinter. The Final Report is now available at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-meta6.html.
The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing proposed revisions to the rules for cataloging cartographic materials. The proposal is available at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/magert1.html.
Full minutes will be available on the CC:DA web site: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/007-agen.html.
There was further discussion of Jean Hirons' Report on Revising AACR2 to Accommodate Seriality (see above). AALL was asked to comment particularly on the issue of looseleafs; Ann Sitkin volunteered to review the Report and submit comments to CC:DA.
General discussion included suggestions for revision to the rules concerning the transcription of titles of nobility or terms of honor when they appear on the title page, and the optionality of parts of statements of responsibility (e.g., translators).
John Hostage (Harvard Law Library) presented a proposal to bring AACR2 into compliance with ISO standards by removing the period after cm and mm in most examples. These are unit symbols in the metric system (not abbreviations) and they should be treated the same as the raised zero for degrees or the dollar sign. A cm or mm should be followed by a period only if it appears at the end of a field (e.g., the 300), with the period added in compliance with the rule which requires each field to end in a period. During discussion a question was raised: if we insist on following ISO standards for the 300 field, do we commit ourselves to following the standard for all the fields? The proposal was defeated 4-3, but a motion was passed to create a task force to study the ramifications of adopting ISO standards for AACR2. John Hostage will be on this task force.
A report was given by the Task Force on an Appendix of Major and Minor Changes, a committee formed to make recommendations for changes (or guidelines) for the use of serials catalogers who must decided whether a title change is major or minor (with major changes requiring the creation of a new record). Barbara Tillet suggested that CC:DA concentrate on listing "major" changes, and assume that anything else is minor (when in doubt... consider a change "minor"), but the committee felt that it was in just such doubtful situations that catalogers most need guidance. The Task Force will continue its work. For further information: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/ccda/tf-appx1.html.
There was more discussion on changes to the rules for cartographic materials (see above).
A new cataloging code is being developed for the use of rare book and manuscript catalogers: Descriptive Cataloging of Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Early-Modern Manuscripts (ftp://165.134.156.3/vatican/)
Short reports were given on a number of proposals currently under consideration:
Don Chatham of ALA Publications announced that the updates to AACR2 are available for downloading or printing out at http://www.ala.org/editions/updates/aacr2.
William Benemann
AALL Representative to CC:DA
Comments to: WebMaster.