Meeting of the Bibliographic Control Working Group
AAU/ARL German Resources Project
Göttingen, 22-23 March 1999
Bibliographic Control Working Group members attending the meeting were Karl Fattig (chair). Other colleagues attending were Christine Boßmeyer, Roger Brisson, Monika Cremer and Bernhard Eversberg.
The group decided that the next step for the Working Group should be to develop a mission statement. Possible themes for such a statement include: information exchange between catalogers, focus on awareness of importance of language skills for catalogers, embracing metadata within an international context. The Working Group will develop a draft statement for publication on the webpage and accept comments from others.
The group discussed the current project to translate into German the 1998 edition of AACR2. It was agreed that the most important result of this project will be to increase awareness and understanding in Germany of Anglo-American cataloging practice at a time when German cataloging rules are undergoing revision. Currently there are 24 individuals participating in the translation project. Project coordinators Heidi Hutchinson and Monika Münnich will assign the first drafts of chapters to participants in the next month.
The group also viewed a demonstration of access to Deutsche Bibliothek catalog records directly from the servers at DDB. The file is currently searchable on the web, and will be available via Z39.50 access to import records from DDB directly into a library’s catalog. It was agreed that this expansion of service would be beneficial to smaller and medium-sized libraries that do not subscribe to RLIN.
The demonstration of the DDB catalog record retrieval system led to a general discussion of how libraries are using these records in their systems, and what sorts of editing, revision and evaluation are being done to the records in order to use them in local OPAC’s. It was decided that this topic would make an excellent research project for the Bibliographic Control Working Group to undertake. The group also decided that this topic would be of interest to enough catalogers, that a presentation or discussion of this at an ALA annual meeting would be warranted. The Working Group is charged with pursuing this topic with an eye to inviting DDB representatives at ALA in New Orleans to present a demonstration and any further details regarding accessing DDB records for local catalogs.
The group discussed the important issue of community building among Germanist catalogers. It was noted that catalogers in the US tend to become involved in cataloging and technical services related sections of professional groups. The first idea that was offered was that of creating an electronic discussion group (e-mail list) for Germanist catalogers, a forum in which to discuss topics of interest and to develop a sense of a community of individuals who know each others’ strengths. Suggestions for populating and publicizing the list included inviting catalogers at GRP member institutions, inviting German participation by publicizing on iNet-bib, a German librarians’ list, and using the AACR2 translation list (or another project list) as a starting point.
There was also discussion about whether it would be useful to create a website or gateway to German cataloging resources. This project seemed to offer many opportunities for collaborative work between North American and German colleagues. It was suggested that perhaps American catalogers could develop a nice list of links to AACR2 resources.
As a result of discussions at the meeting, the group proposed to the members of the Bibliographic Control Working Group the following action items:
1. It will attempt to establish a listserv or electronic mail discussion group for Germanist catalogers.
2. It will begin planning to develop a Germanist cataloger’s toolkit, or gateway website. This could be begun in conjunction with proposal no. 1.
3. It will pursue opportunities to perform research on the use of German National Library records in local American OPAC’s. It will also pursue avenues of sharing this information with the American cataloging community at large.
4. It will invite DDB representatives to present a demonstration or arrange for a discussion of this topic at the New Orleans meeting.
The Bibliographic Control Working Group will work on the action plan and report on its progress at New Orleans in the summer.
