Technical Services Special Interest Section

View PDF version of this report (18 KB PDF)

Kathy Winzer
Robert Crown Law Library
Stanford University
kwinzer [at] stanford.edu

The Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) regularly meets on Saturday afternoon and Monday morning. During the 2005 midwinter meeting, an additional Friday 9:00 to 5:00 meeting was held to allow additional time for discussion.

Midwinter meetings were dominated by discussion of the first draft of AACR3, part one. The Friday meeting was an Omnibus Task Force meeting during which intense discussion of the first draft took place. A summary of significant issues in AACR2 that remain unresolved in AACR3 was created by an ad hoc group which was used for further discussion at the regular meetings of CC:DA. Concerns were voiced about the structure of the draft, the difficulty of its use, and the perception that the draft was largely a rearrangement of the old rules. Problems were noted in the GMD/SMD area, where charts included in the draft were difficult to understand and apply. The discussions begun on Friday continued through the regularly scheduled meetings on Saturday and Monday.

The deadline for comments into Confluence, the shared workspace set up by the current CC:DA chair, was February 11. A group of eight law catalogers reviewed the draft and sent me their comments, which I input into Confluence. I was asked to summarize the section of the comments dealing with integrating resources and later the introductory and general sections. The summarized version then went to Jennifer Bowen to use in creating her report to the Joint Steering Committee (JSC). Her full report is available: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/docs/jsc0506.pdf

At the April meeting of the JSC, comments and suggestions regarding the draft led to a change in direction for the work in progress. The new code is designed to simplify, clarify, and update AACR2, and the new standard has been tentatively titled RDA: Resource Description and Access. RDA is being designed for the digital environment: a web-based product as well as a loose-leaf; addressing cataloging of all digital resource (and analog); with resulting records usable in digital environments including the Internet, Web OPACs, etc. One goal of the new standard is to appeal to constituencies beyond the traditional library catalogers with a multinational content standard providing bibliographic description and access for all types of media.

Because RDA is seen as a content standard, it will be independent of the format used to communicate the information (i.e. MARC21). As a consequence, the new standard will not include the ISBD punctuation instructions at the beginning of every section. Rather punctuation guidance will be in an appendix at the end.

The overall structure proposed for RDA is similar to the original AACR3: part 1 to identify the resource and to describe the technical characteristics of the resource; part 2 to address relationships, related works, expressions, manifestations, and items, as well as persons, corporate bodies, and families that play some role with respect to the resource being described. The idea of a "primary access point" is being discussed to replace the term "main entry heading," but the concept remains the same-to give primary emphasis to the creator of the work contained in the manifestation being cataloged. Part 3 will address authority control.

At the end of May a memo was posted on the JSC website, asking for input from the various constituencies concerning the special rules in chapter 21. The JSC wishes to eliminate and simplify rules in this chapter, combining or eliminating rules whenever possible.

Since the rules currently in 21.31 through 21.36, the special legal rules, directly affect us, I quickly asked the group that reviewed AACR3 to review these special rules, trying to find areas in the rules that could be made simpler to understand or eliminated. The report to CC:DA was due on July 11, which did not give us much time. Our report has been sent to CC:DA and will be mounted on the CC:DA website soon. The URL for the CC:DA website is below. In brief, we recommended that most of the rules be retained, with a major change suggested in the treaty area.

The rules in chapter 21.31 through 21.36 frequently call for entry under jurisdiction and uniform title. In our review we retained this instruction but did not discuss the form of the uniform title itself. The question of whether to continue with the artificial "Laws, etc." and "Treaties, etc." is one AALL must address. In particular, we will need to consider the function of the Compiled statutes and Session laws uniform titles.

The JSC has stated that future drafts will circulate more widely than the first draft of AACR. AALL is more fortunate than some groups in that we have a Cataloging and Classification Committee from whom we can draw "official" names. The work of review is extremely time-consuming. A reviewer is expected to read and carefully consider all areas of a draft and to provide both general and specific feedback. A reviewer is not permitted to say "I hate it" and not provide a way to improve it.

I was especially fortunate in working with 7 of our most experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated catalogers. I'd like to publicly acknowledge the work of Julie Griffith Kees, John Hostage, Rhonda Lawrence, Nancy Poehlmann, Ann Sitkin, Regina Wallen, and Marie Whited. I hope that others will volunteer to work on future projects as they are identified in the near future. The draft of part 1 of RDA will be coming out in October, for example, with May 2006 for the draft of part 2, October 2006 for the draft of part 3, and the completion of the general introduction, appendices, and glossary in May 2007. Publication date is hoped to be 2008.

Please watch for emails on the TS list for future issues and questions. You were all very helpful when I asked if "S.l." and "s.n." should be retained. The JSC was convinced by constituency response, including ours, that something needed to be put into the publication area to indicate that a resource was published. I believe an English phrase such as "Place unknown" and "Publisher unknown" is currently being considered.

Some websites of interest:

CC:DA website, where various documents are posted
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/

Strategic plan for RDA on the JSC website:
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/stratplan.html

Other documents on the JSC website:
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc

RDA: Resource Description and Access: Background and Context
Presentation by Barbara Tillett at ALA Annual June 2005
http://www.library.yale.edu/~mbeacom/AACR3-RDA/ALA%20RDA%20June%202005%20Tillett.ppt

Changing Direction: From AACR to RDA
Presentation by Jennifer Bowen at ALA Annual June 2005
http://www.library.yale.edu/~mbeacom/AACR3-RDA/Bowen%20Changing%20Direction.ppt

Jennifer Bowen's executive summary on RDA:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/docs/rda0506.pdf

Library of Congress has several websites of interest:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/

Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office, where various documents of interest to catalogers are posted, including some on FRBR
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/