Bibliographic Control Working Group
ALA Midwinter
12 January 2008
Philadelphia, PA

Present:

Charles Croissant (Saint Louis University), Judy Alspach (Center for Research Libraries), Gail Hueting (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Miranda Hay (National Library of Medicine), Rowena Griem (Yale University), Jim Niessen (Rutgers University), Jon Marner (Texas A & M), Deborah Rose-Lefman (Northwestern University), Sebastian Hierl (Harvard University), Frances Ott Allen (University of Cincinnati), Gregory Wool (Iowa State University)

Minutes from the previous meeting were approved with no changes.

Report from Steering Committee:

Late March is the deadline for articles for the next CRL newsletter, which will focus on German resources and hopefully have GNARP input. GNARP will soon need to begin charging membership fees, and the Steering Committee agreed to $250 annually for CRL member institutions and $350 annually for non-member institutions of CRL. There will be no membership fees for personal members of GNARP. The Steering Committee also reviewed the bylaws and approved a text to be sent to the membership for a vote.

Call for Nominations for new Chair (term: May 2008-2010)

Nominating Committee will be formed by Steering Committee for all open offices. Charles encourages nominations for new Chair of Bibliographic Control Working Group.

Future Work of Bibliographic Control Working Group

Charles states that although BCWG has had successful projects in the past, such as the translation of AACR2, the working group doesn’t currently have active projects.

The description of the working group was read and discussed, in light of BCWG’s potential activities.
“The Bibliographic Control Working Group has been charged to assess and evaluate the current state of German-language cataloging in North America, to develop strategies to maximize German-language cataloging expertise on a national level through knowledge and resource-sharing, and to establish closer ties to the cataloging community in Germany. The goal of the latter is to work toward bringing our respective cataloging cultures closer together, and to harmonize our various rules and practices to allow for more effective sharing of bibliographic data.”

How do we make it easier to share bibliographic data between the United States and Germany? German National Library and Library of Congress are already working together on data exchange and harmonization. This is where this work belongs. BCWG doesn’t feel it has a useful role in this work, since any concrete progress to be made would happen at national library level.

Maybe BCWG could be clearinghouse for subject heading suggestions. Rowena mentioned there is such a clearinghouse for Hebraica. Volunteers are approved by LC and then review the requests to vet them before the requests are sent to LC. The group is also interested in establishing some English terms for German concepts that appear in German-language materials. Should BCWG apply to LC to constitute a clearinghouse/funnel?

A new interest of GNARP is librarian exchanges, internships and study tours. Ideas in this area were discussed at the Steering Committee meeting the day before. Jim Niessen reported on Rutgers’ hosting a German cataloger for three months. It was organized through informal means, and the cataloger was funded with grants. Charles suggested that tours might more easily accomplish the goals of exchange, since it could become quite time-consuming to train a German to do a task for the limited period of time they were in the US, and they might not need that skill back in Germany. This would hardly be productive for anyone. Michael Seadle had pointed out in a written report that reciprocal exchange agreements would be very difficult to put in place due to the different structures of the professions and the language needs and abilities of most librarians. At the Steering Committee meeting, Beth Remak offered to be part of a committee that works toward hosting exchange efforts. It was decided that BCWG should not take on the exchange work, but that members of the BCWG can contribute to the exchange work as their time and interest allows. Rowena Griem had gone on a 10 day study tour in Germany and found it very valuable. Rowena’s trip was organized by the German version of SLA, and was funded by the Checkpoint Charlie foundation.

Someone in the group suggested sponsoring a session at the next ALA meeting for American catalogers to learn to interpret German cataloging records. Some US catalogers have experienced confusion in trying to understand serials and series records, and also the way German catalogers handle corporate bodies. Each item in a series is cataloged separately in Germany, rather than attaching item records to bibliographic records, as is done in the US. A session about how to interpret German cataloging records may be better organized by the WESS Cataloging Discussion Group, so BCWG will refer this idea to them.

Sebastian Hierl said that GNARP should reinvent itself to remain relevant. Each group can define own charge and these might change over time. The new chair will be very involved in helping define new project goals.

Rowena asked if GNARP can assist the Library of Congress due to staff shortages. SACO requests have had slower responses. Charles offered to write email to Dr. Panzera at the Library of Congress to find linkages to LC in cataloging or language expertise.

Someone asked if there are other potential working groups that could be established by GNARP. Judy Alspach mentioned that some other GRN projects have some sort of Communication/Outreach/Membership WG. Jim N. that such a working group would be a good place to ask for articles for the newsletter. The WESS newsletter is also always looking for articles.

Charles will contact Kason Snow about idea to offer a session about interpreting German catalog records.
Charles will contact Don Panzera about GNARP BCWG offering expertise to LC.

Rowena to ask Yale Hebraica cataloger about SACO funnel participation.

Meeting adjourned 3:05 pm

Minutes submitted by Judy Alspach