Minutes
Draft Minutes of the 28th meeting held in the Education Room, National Library of Australia on Monday 15th August, 1994 at 8.30am.
- Welcome & Apologies
- Minutes of the 27th Meeting, 28 February 1994 (ACOC/378min)
- Business Arising from the Minutes (ACOC/379)
- National Library Report (ACOC/380)
- ABN Standards Committee Report (ACOC/381)
- JSC Matters (ACOC/382)
- Terms of Reference (ACOC/383)
- Towards Federation 2001 (ACOC/384)
- RC3 - Survey of Bibliographic Access to Australia's Documentary Pictorial Collections
- RC7 - Feasibility Study into an Australian Thesaurus
- RC8 - Australian Extension to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
- RC11 - Survey of Thesaurus Usage in Australian Libraries
- RK3 - Improving Access to Materials for People with Disabilities
- Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee Report (ACOC/385)
- Descriptive Cataloguing (ACOC/386)
- National Cataloguing Conference (ACOC/387)
- Standards Association of Australia, Committee IT/19 (ACOC/388)
- Publicity & Reporting (ACOC/389)
- Other Business (ACOC/390)
- Date of Next Meeting and Vote of Thanks
Present:
Mr Andrew Wells (ALIA) Chair
Mr Giles Martin (ACLIS)
Ms Pam
Dunlop (NLA)
Ms Margareta Nicholas (ALIA)
Ms Helen Hoffmann (ALIA)
Ms
Janet Thorp (ACLIS)
Ms Ann Huthwaite (ACLIS)
Ms Julia Trainor (NLA)
Mr Ian Dunn (Minutes)
Welcome & Apologies
Andrew Wells welcomed the Committee members, noting that this would be his last meeting as he would not be standing for a further term. Andrew also noted that Ann Huthwaite's term would expire at the end of this year, but as she is ACOC's representative on JSC, it would be practical for ACLIS to reappoint Ann to ACOC next year. Andrew undertook to contact Gordon Bower about this issue.
Minutes Of The 27th Meeting, 28 February 1994 (ACOC/378min)
No corrections were made to the minutes. It was moved (Andrew Wells/Janet Thorp) that the minutes be accepted as a true record of the 27th meeting. Carried.
Business Arising from the Minutes (ACOC/379)
All business arising from the minutes related to business arising from the previous meeting, in section 3 of the minutes:
- Paragraph 2
- The paper by Elaine Svenonius and Barbara Tillett has not yet been
received.
- Paragraph 3
- Standards Association of Australia Committee IT/19 - Andrew Wells
noted that the minutes of IT/19 are marked 'In Confidence' so it will not be
possible to circulate them in the ACOC papers.
- Paragraph 4
- Vietnamese names - Helen Jarvis and Nereida Cross are pursuing
their proposal (that Vietnamese names be entered in direct order without a
comma after the family name) directly with the ALA.
- Paragraph 6
- CatSkill - Mary Mortimer has not contacted Andrew Wells. The National Library and ALIA have written to the Committee of Principals to express support for the inclusion of AACR2 extracts in the Cat Skill product. Pam Dunlop noted that the National Library is making a formal assessment of the CatSkill product for training cataloguers.
National Library Report (ACOC/380)
Julia Trainor (National Bibliographic Services) reported that most bibliographic standards work in the last 6 months had been in the application and implementation of standards rather than standards development. Major activities included:
- USMARC format integration - implementation on the NBD and in ABN services
- Blackwells Table Of Contents (TOC) data - implementation on ABN, including issues related to the fields used to transmit TOC data in the MARC record.
- Preservation microform masters - publicising the ABN interim standard at the National Preservation Conference.
- Aboriginal languages and peoples - liaison continued with people involved in the Aboriginal thesaurus, with a view to setting up procedures for identifying authoritative forms of headings.
- Disability services - publication of manual for cataloguing computer files for production of alternative format material, which will be reported in Link Up together with publicity for the cataloguing of signed and captioned videos.
Margareta Nicholas mentioned that the proposals for Aboriginal names are being held up, and asked what the Library can do to get them through. Julia Trainor replied that the standardisation of Aboriginal names is complex and is unlikely to be resolved quickly. However, for practical purposes, once a proposal had been submitted to the Subject Headings Review Panel for consideration, ABN cataloguers are free to use the term pending a decision by Standards Committee.
Giles Martin questioned the placement of the Blackwells TOC data in a 'local' field (970) and suggested that if this format is useful for libraries it should be placed in a standard USMARC field such as 505 or another 5XX field. Pam Dunlop reported on various developments occurring in the Collections and Reader Services Division of the National Library :
- Pam Gatenby had attended this year's CONSER meeting and her report will appear in NLA Gateways. One outcome of the visit is that the National Library will become a full member of CONSER.
- The NLA Cataloguing-In-Publication team is surveying publishers, school libraries and other libraries on their requirements in relation to CIP services.
- The NLA will mount an information server on its WWW server which would cover NLA services and catalogues, pointers to NLA collections and other navigation aids, information on DNC, NPO, ACLIS, and electronic and CDROM journals.
- The NLA server will mount the Department of Finance's file of government information for a 6 month trial. Negotiations are also being held with the Australian Government Publishing Service in relation to information relating to government publications.
- The NLA has written to the International Music Standard Number Agency in Berlin and have asked for information on the ISMN service, with a view to setting up an Australian agency, probably within the National Library.
- The NLA is looking at ways of reporting ISSN information to the international agency electronically rather than the current paper based methods.
- The Australian National Bibliography will now include CDROMs which contain primarily textual material.
ABN Standards Committee Report (ACOC/381)
Ann Huthwaite reported on ABN Standards Committee (SC), highlighting issues relevant to ACOC:
- There is still a need for a standard for the romanisation of Chinese characters using Pinyin. The CJK Technical Committee, which is responsible for standards in the CJK system, will have an influence on the development of such a standard.
- A proposal has arisen at LC not to trace some series statements in bibliographic records. SC saw this as a backward step but decided to wait for LC to come to a decision on the matter.
- SC approved guidelines on the presentation of serial holdings statements in ABN holdings statements, particularly those relating to multiple locations.
- SC approved of the use of the term "electronic journal" in the collation area of bibliographic records describing such items.
- SC reviewed its own functions as a committee, considered broadening its own role and clarifying its relationship with Standards Association of Australia Committee IT/19.
- SC had recommended an interim standard for Preservation information. There would be two records created, one for the original and one for any other copies.
- SC decided to retain the use of chronological subdivisions under the subdivision "Description and travel" for works about Australia.
It was agreed that ACOC members should receive ABN Standards Committee papers.
JSC Matters (ACOC/382)
Diana Dack tabled a report on the last meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR2 (JSC) which was held on 24-25 March at Boulder, Colorado. Diana spoke to the paper, highlighting the following issues: electronic AACR2, treatment of kits, GMDs for videos and motion pictures, technical specifications for videos, main entry under corporate body, illustrations, and multiple versions. She also spoke about JSC's development of a strategic plan, which includes an international conference to be held in 1996, by invitation only, to discuss the future of AACR.
Diana also tabled Australian responses to various JSC papers. These responses had been sent to JSC members, but had not been distributed to ACOC members. The papers tabled were as follows:
- 3JSC/Aus 8/ALA response/Aus response
- 3JSC/Aus/6/rev
- 3JSC/LC/22/Aus response
- 3JSC/Aus/1/rev/ALA response/Aus response
- 3JSC/BL/1/Aus response
- 3JSC/ALA/15/Aus response
- 3JSC/ALA/18/Aus response
- 3JSC/Aus 8/ALA response/3/Aus response
- 3JSC/Chair/8/CCC follow up/Aus response
- 3JSC/BL/1/rev/Aus response
- 3JSC/ALA/11/ALA response/BL response/Aus response
- 3JSC/Aus/4/CCC follow up/Aus response
- 3JSC/ALA/19/Aus response
- 3JSC/Aus/6/rev/Aus follow-up
Future directions for the cataloging rules meeting notes
- 3JSC/ALA/25 Attachment
- 3JSC/ALA/Info/2/BL response (Draft) At this point, Ann Huthwaite assumed the Chair, and led discussion on JSC business which will be on the JSC agenda at its next meeting in Harrowgate, UK, May 1995. AUS/1 Technical specifications for video recordings
AUS/8 Addition to GMD for captioned video recordings and motion pictures In view of the lack of support for these two Australian proposals, it was agreed to withdraw the proposals and fold the issues into the discussion at the international conference in 1996. AUS/6 Inclusion of terms for computer memory The Australian paper on terms for computer memory (3JSC/Aus/6) was accepted and the changes will appear in the next revision. LC20/ Revision of rule 21.1B4 ACOC supported the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing's proposal (Response 2) that deletion of 21.1B4 will not resolve the problems with this rule. The issue of simplification of the rules for the choice of entry for works involving subordinate bodies was added to the list of issues to be considered in the context of the long term future of AACR. ALA19/ Illustrations - rule 2.5C2 There was some support for the British Library response that there be an optional rule for describing illustrative matter, and it was also thought that more examples would be useful. ACOC agreed to discuss this proposal further by email. ALA21/ Bibliographic description of Internet resources
ALA22/ Chief source of information for computer files - rule 9.0B1 There was general support for ALA21, a report on OCLC's Guidelines for description of Internet resources. A decision on the chief source of information for computer files (ALA/22) was deferred on the grounds that we need to further consult with systems people. Computer files often lack the kind of information required by cataloguers and there was a need to draw on accompanying documentation. ALA23/ Mode of access to Internet resources. There was general support for the URL (Universal Resource Locator) as the means of locating Internet resources in cataloguing records, and a suggestion for more helpful examples. It was noted that the URL will be in field 856 in coded form. It was also noted that this differs from NLA practice with electronic serials. It was agreed to discuss this further by email. ALA 24/ Interactive multimedia - information document.
ALA 25/ Modification of rules in Chapter 9 to reflect current usage. The final draft Guidelines for bibliographic description of interactive multimedia is an information paper giving background for ALA 25, which proposes changes to description of computer files. The usage of two spellings 'disc' and 'disk' is specified by the rule, and 'optical' replaces 'laser'. ACOC members expressed some scepticism about the practicality of having two spellings for 'disc/disk'. However, the meeting supported the proposal in principle, and agreed to discuss ACOC's final response further by email. ALA26/ Key and mode in music uniform titles Pam Dunlop reported that NLA cataloguers found this proposal quite sensible. Pam undertook to mention the proposal at the IAML meeting in September as ACOC needs to consult music cataloguers. ACOC will discuss this further by email. CCC6/ Capitalisation of titles in the note area. This proposal has been accepted and will appear in the revision to AACR2. ALA Info/1 Definition of 'edition' in the Glossary. It was noted that definition of 'edition' is a very complex matter which will be addressed at the international meeting in 1996. The proposal will remain on the agenda but was not discussed at the meeting. ALA27/ Guidelines for the bibliographic description of reproductions Guidelines for bibliographic description of reproductions, the final report of the ALA CC:DA Task Force to Review Reproductions Cataloging Guidelines was distributed for information and noted by the Committee. ALA Info2/ Strategic planning for AACR2
ALA/28 The Committee considered two documents relating to strategic planning which propose a fundamental revision to AACR2. JSC has listed a number of matters that it would consider for its forward work plan, including the concepts of edition and publication, the role of GMDs, concepts of main entry, references and added entries, multiple versions, new formats and the relationship between ISBD and MARC formats. These issues would be discussed at the international conference in 1996.
Terms of Reference (ACOC/383)
Virginia Walsh, Executive Director of ALIA, joined the meeting for the discussion of this item. Andrew Wells introduced the discussion, saying the text of ACOC's revised Terms of Reference, as drawn up at the previous meeting, had been sent to ACLIS and ALIA with a covering letter. The covering letter also suggested that the appointment process within ALIA should be as open as possible. Recently it had come to ACOC's notice that the revised Terms of Reference had been discussed at a joint meeting of ALIA and ACLIS on 26 May 1994. The main issues of concern were the discussion of membership of ACOC and reporting of ACOC's business.
On the question of membership, there had been comment at the ALIA/ACLIS joint meeting of the fact that ACOC had not reviewed its membership, but Andrew pointed out that ACOC's brief had requested only that it review the Terms of Reference. There had been no request to ACOC to review its membership.
On the question of reporting, Andrew led the meeting in taking stock of ACOC's current patterns of reporting: ALIA
- Report submitted regularly for inclusion in the General Council papers
- Report submitted regularly for inclusion in Cataloguing Australia
- Reports to other ALIA forums, e.g. state ALIA Cataloguers Section meetings, the biennial ALIA National Cataloguers Conference
ACLIS
- ACLIS news
- ACLIS annual report
- ACLIS National Council
National Library
- National Library of Australia Gateways
- Written reports to National Library Senior Staff Meetings
The meeting then considered what might be done to improve the reporting of ACOC's business to ALIA and ACLIS. The following suggestions were agreed to:
- All members of ACOC to ensure they speak to local groups on ACOC matters.
- Make sure that the person entrusted with the Cataloguing portfolio on ALIA National Council speaks on behalf of ACOC.
- Offer to discuss issues of concern with the next joint meeting of ALIA and ACLIS, to be held in January-February 1995. Virginia Walsh and Gordon Bower will set the date.
Virginia Walsh expressed particular interest and enthusiasm for the suggestion that the role of corresponding membership of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing be folded into the ACOC Terms of Reference. ALIA is the member of IFLA, but this is one of a number of important forums which ALIA finds it difficult to participate in, and it would be practical to be able to refer all such business to ACOC.
Ann Huthwaite reported briefly to Virginia on ACOC's involvement in JSC matters, and Giles Martin on his involvement with DDC.
Towards Federation 2001 (ACOC/384)
Andrew Wells had received a letter from the NLA enquiring about progress on Towards Federation 2001 resolutions RC8, RC7, RC11, RC3 and RK3. RC3 - Survey of Bibliographic Access to Australia's Documentary Pictorial Collections.
Julia Trainor reported that the consultant engaged to conduct the survey, Paul Hodgson of Informed Sources, had delivered his complete report. A number of key issues have been identified: the priority of imaging photographic collections, the quality of indexing and captioning, the issue of a distributed network versus a centralised database, and the question of an appropriate thesaurus. The Council of Australian State Librarians Collection Management Group had met the previous week and discussed the latest draft of the report. The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects will discuss the final report in September. Julia has undertaken to keep the museums sector informed on progress with this study, but there does not seem to be much interest from the museum sector for practical cooperative activities at this stage. RC7 - Feasibility Study into an Australian Thesaurus
Julia Trainor reported that this project was not included in the National Library's Annual Operational Plan this year due to resource constraints. RC8 Australian Extension to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
Andrew Wells reported that the List of Australian Subject Headings (LASH) 2nd edition, had been received on diskette in Macintosh format, also available in MS Word format. Michael Ramsden is retiring next year. His impression was that ALIA National Cataloguers Section would publish LASH. In hard copy it comes to 180 pages, so it may be advisable to publish it on disk instead.
Andrew had asked Michael Ramsden how he would feel about including LASH maintenance in the business of the ABN Subject Headings Review Panel. Michael had replied that this would be acceptable, and advised Andrew to contact Olivia Abbay. He is not sure who owns the copyright to LASH. Andrew recommended that LASH be published electronically and folded into the ABN/SHRP process.
There is no third edition in preparation. ACOC recommended that LASH should be made available to Australian cataloguers as soon as possible, and that it be used as a source of proposals for the ABN/SHRP, and that the future Australian extension to LCSH work should be centralised, in a similar way that the first edition of LASH was combed for proposals to the Library of Congress for new headings and references. RC11 Survey of Thesaurus Usage in Australian Libraries
Andrew Wells reported that minor revisions would need to be made to the survey proposal in the light of comments from the last ACOC meeting. He would fax the draft proposal to ACOC members for a last opportunity to comment before the proposal goes to ACLIS. Julia Trainor noted that an Aboriginal thesaurus which is now under development, may have an impact on the development of an Australian thesaurus. RK3 Improving Access to Materials for People with Disabilities
Julia Trainor reported that all the bibliographic tasks identified so far had been tackled, for example the cataloguing of computer files, access to signed and captioned video recordings, access to easy to read materials, and access to coded data in records for sound recordings. It was agreed that Julia Trainor will invite suggestions for further bibliographic projects from the disability service community, by means of an article in Link Up, in combination with publicity on recent bibliographic projects.
Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee Report (ACOC/385)
Giles Martin reported on the May meeting of the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) which has finished work on the 21st edition to be published in 1996. The next meeting of the Editorial Policy Committee will be in April 1995.
Giles tabled EPC's abridged annual report for 1993/94. The main business of the last meeting had been the revision of the life sciences area, 560-590. The 570s have been revised completely with 574, 575.1 and 575.2 being left vacant to accommodate libraries which will not reclassify retrospectively. Usually there is only one phoenix per revision, but there will be two in DC21. The other large revision is 350-354 (public administration). Unlike the revision to life sciences, which a library could decide not to implement, the revisions to public administration would be difficult not to implement. The revision is also likely to be attractive to libraries, but ACOC noted its responsibility to alert Australian libraries to the need to plan resources if they wish to reclassify their collections in this area.
EPC is working on its forward work plan for DC22 to be published next century. Julia Trainor undertook to check National Library files for a letter from Louise Burmester to EPC about three Australian proposals: Football, Piano (4 hands) and Genealogy.
Giles Martin mentioned that work is about to commence on the Abridged Edition of Dewey. The Schools Cataloguing Information Service uses this edition, so they will be consulted for suggestions. Julia Trainor agreed to arrange an announcement on the ABN daily news to reach public libraries.
Descriptive Cataloguing (ACOC/386)
The Committee considered the letter from Jan Gaebler requesting improvements in cataloguing rules to promote access to successive editions of a work, in particular later editions which are published under a different title. She also suggested changes which would allow cataloguers to provide access to the 'nicknames' of government reports. The Committee felt that the challenges raised by Jan Gaebler are all able to be met within the current cataloguing rules. Andrew Wells undertook to respond with information about the application of the cataloguing rules to address these access problems.
National Cataloguing Conference (ACOC/387)
Andrew Wells reported that the National Cataloguers Conference would be held on a Thursday and Friday in October 1995, with the theme 'reinventing cataloguing'. The conference would include a paper from Ann Huthwaite on JSC/AACR2, as well as an oversees speaker. The committee discussed ideas for an overseas speaker, with suggestions including Barbara Tillett and Thomas Mann (a reference librarian who champions classification standards, and is a lively speaker).
The committee discussed whether ACOC could do a pre-conference seminar on the 'Future of AACR2'. Ann Huthwaite undertook to draft a programme.
Standards Association Of Australia, Committee IT/19 (ACOC/388)
Andrew Wells described the composition and functions of Committee IT/19, suggesting that ACOC should have more input to IT/19 on bibliographic standards issues.
He reported that IT/19 had strongly recommended the adoption of Unicode as an Australian standard. Joan Aliprand had attended the last meeting, and reported that Unicode and the Library of Congress are discussing the implementation of Unicode. ISO 639 Names of Languages
The code 'pap' is used for Papua New Guinea and Australian Aboriginal languages. IT/19 is trying to separate them. An approach has been made to John Byrum at the Library of Congress, who said that the case for a separate language code should be based on the existence of 50 documents in the language. Andrew Wells and Julia Trainor undertook to look at this standard, and Julia said the National Library would do the searching in support of any case to be developed by IT/19 for the creation of separate language codes. AIATSIS have suggested separate codes for all the different languages. Andrew suggested that the definition of individual languages could be a future change after the first step of splitting PNG and Australian languages.
Julia Trainor and Margareta Nicholas undertook to look more closely at the standard for names of countries. Holdings Statements for Non-Serial Items
Andrew Wells described this standard, and said he did not imagine any Australian libraries would wish to adopt this standard for their holdings statements. Joan Aliprand had reported a low acceptance of this standard in the United States. It was noted that there are also standards for holdings statements for serial items. It was agreed that these standards should have relatively low priority in IT/19's work. ISO 3166 Monolingual Thesaurus etc.
IT/19 are looking at this with a view to cloning it as an Australian standard. Andrew suggested that ACOC could look at some standards relating to thesaurus construction and recommended ISO 639, SB 5999 : 1980 and ISO 3166 : 1993. He proposed to circulate these to members for comment.
Ann Huthwaite and Julia Trainor undertook to look at ISO 3166, and Janet Thorpe at BS 5999.
Andrew also undertook to revise ACOC's Terms of Reference to include consideration of relevant IT/19 issues and to circulate the revised Terms of Reference to members.
In answer to a question, Andrew Wells reported that IT/19 meets three times per year, rotating between three cities: Canberra, Melbourne (July 94) and Sydney (November 94).
Publicity & Reporting (ACOC/389)
Andrew Wells felt that the Committee needed to feed information about its activities to key people and asked members to report locally as much as possible (eg to ABN users meetings).
Other Business (ACOC/390)
Arrangements were foreshadowed for the next meeting when Andrew Wells would no longer be the chairperson. Ann Huthwaite as deputy chairperson would conduct the welcome and apologies then hand over to Gordon Bower to conduct the election of a new chaiperson.
Ann Huthwaite invited members to submit names for suitable persons who might be appointed to this Committee to represent ACLIS.
Giles Martin agreed to make available to Committee members documentation relating to :
- Subject headings relating to Australian Aboriginals
- LC changes to processes for cataloguing and authority work and the functions of the LC rule interpretations
Date of Next Meeting and Vote of Thanks
The Committee confirmed that the dates of its meetings in 1995 will be 20 April and 28 August.
The Committee officially thanked Andrew Wells for his time on the Committee and for being such an effective chairperson.


