Cataloging Discussion Group (New York)
30 April 2001
Whitney Museum of American Art
Approximately 25 NYC art catalogers gathered at the Whitney Museum
library to further discuss the revised subject headings implemented by
LC on 1 February 2001. People are fairly certain about many new-style
subject headings though a number of specific examples were discussed.
Some of the salient characteristics: chronology and national styles are
not mixed; MODERN is still a viable stylistic adjective but is not
combined with geographical terms; ART will follow the pattern in H 1148
but it is uncertain if some other forms like DRAWING and PRINTS must be
established heading by heading; chronology is added to ARCHITECTURE
headings parallel to other major art forms but national style adjectives
are not used for architecture in its own country.
Some maintenance of existing headings is being done, mostly as
encountered in cataloging new items and mostly on individual bib
records. Some systems do allow some global changing but the revisions
are not conducive to global change since it is not usually a one-to-one
change. Geac ADVANCE will easily allow a cataloger to change ART,
MODERN -- 20TH CENTURY -- UNITED STATES to ART, AMERICAN -- 20TH CENTURY
but this would leave an incomplete and redundant ART, AMERICAN behind in
most cases. Voyager users saw a similar global change enhancement at
the users group meeting earlier in April. Users of Innovative
Interfaces were not certain if III had similar capabilities.
Redundancy from global change will have an effect on copy cataloging if
copy is sent to RLIN. Nonetheless, it is seen as inevitable as a means
to change large clusters of headings. In an art catalog of any size,
headings like ART, MODERN -- 20TH CENTURY -- UNITED STATES will have a
large enough number of hits that one cannot imagine doing bib-by-bib
record maintenance.
Zimra Panitz distributed a survey for a course at Pratt Library School.
The survey addressed cataloging courses, quality of copy cataloging, and
the selection of libraries as sources for cataloging, hit rates for
particular sorts of copy. Following the completion of the survey,
people listed common problems with cataloging copy, e.g. incomplete
upgrade from CIP, vendor records and incomplete upgrade, wrong indirect
geographic subdivision (e.g. Madrid through Brazil, Vienna through
Germany). Other issues: obsolete geography though LC is fairly
consistent in using current geographic names. The cataloging course at
Pratt emphasizes Dewey classification and Sears subject headings,
neither being particularly helpful for most art research libraries. A
session on internships, etc. at the ARLIS/NA national conference in
March discussed cataloging education, with input from a UCLA cataloging
professor who does teach cataloging but the school generally only steers
those interested in cataloging to the courses.
RLIN is no longer printing shelflist cards. What are people doing? FIT
is getting cards from MARCLink (recommended by RLIN) and is happy with
them (they are still cataloging on RLIN and do not have online
shelflisting capability). MoMA, NYU and Columbia are not filing cards
in the shelflist. Morgan and Whitney are preparing temporary cards.
Relevant issues: does the shelflist include info not put in online
record like number of copies, missing status? better reports can be
written if more item data is in the catalog; does the system allow
reliable and reasonable searching of call numbers? is the bulk of the
collection converted to machine-readable form? how will you deal with
duplicate call numbers if you do not shelflist?
Maria Oldal reported from VUGM that the LC authority file should be
searchable again in late 2001 or early 2002. The authority records will
not be linked to bib records and will be done via the cataloging module.
Danny Fermon reminded people that the name authority file is available
at http://lcauth.dra.com/lcauth but he is not certain how often the file
is updated.
Mark Bresnan announced the Frick is seeking a part-time cataloger to
review the work of a vendor who is producing AACR2 name authority
records from their artist file listing. The job is ca. 12 hours a week
(approximately $18/hour); contact Debbie Kempe for more info.
Rodica Preda said the Cataloging Section is working on session proposals
for the 2002 ARLIS/NA conference. The CPDG proposal is joint with the
section business meeting. A session is being proposed by Sherman Clarke
on "Special formats and specialized manuals." Since there is never
enough time to prepare the proposals, it was suggested that the CDG (and
perhaps the other art cataloging discussion groups across the U.S.)
might start some discussion two or three months before the annual conference.
It was announced that the NYTSL dinner and program would be Friday
evening, 4 May 2001, with a talk by Sherry Vellucci on authority control
in the new millennium.
Next meeting (June 11th? at the Morgan): the Morgan Library has
suggested a discussion on the future of RLG and OCLC, following up on a
discussion of the RLG Art and Architecture Group in conjunction with
ARLIS/NA in L.A. OCLC has been discussing "extending the OCLC
cooperative" and more info can be found at http://oclc.org/strategy/
Discussion questions: what is the future of the bibliographic utilities?
how do you work with them? what is the influence of users? It was also
suggested by Daniel Starr (via Vicky Bohm) that we discuss setting up
and training for Catalogers Desktop; Heidi Hass will try to arrange for
demonstrations of Desktop at the meeting.
Notes by Sherman Clarke
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