Teleconference 4 April 2002
Joint Steering Committee for the revision of AACR
Ann Huthwaite spoke about the forthcoming meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR to be held in mid May in New Haven, Connecticut. This meeting would be rather different from previous JSC meetings. While there were some items to be dealt with that had been held over from previous meetings, JSC planned to discuss some of the larger and more fundamental issues facing the code in a conceptual way.
One of the items requiring ACOCs input was whether to accept the document prepared by the ALA as a possible Appendix to the Rules. The appendix entitled Major Differences and Changes: When to Create a New Record was the result of a request by JSC to assemble such a document. Some of the JSC constituents, including ACOC thought that the document was attempting to codify and explain what was, in the last resort, a matter of the cataloguers judgement, and was not helpful.
Although appreciative of the large amount of work and effort put in by CC:DAs Task Force on an Appendix of Major and Minor Changes, ACOC felt that it could not support the end result as an Appendix in AACR and was even dubious of the value of issuing it independently. However, some of the statements, which gave generalised guidance were very good indeed, and the incorporation of some of these statements into the rules was supported.
DDC Matters
Anne Robertson reported that the editorial work on DDC was progressing smoothly and there would be a further meeting of the editorial committee on 15th-19th May. Anne would be putting further information on this, and a call for libraries to consider being featured Dewey libraries, on CATLIBS.
Cataloguers Conferences
ACOC discussed the future of special interest conferences. A meeting on the same topic in Melbourne had been divided on the issue with no agreement reached. ACOC identified three options:
a. Join in existing conferences such as VALA, On-Line On Disk, and others, with a conscious effort to ensure there was strong cataloguing content.
b. Take the course proposed by ALIA, and join with other special interest groups in providing a program which would assist cataloguers every two years
c. Arrange a seminar for cataloguers independently or in collaboration with another special interest group.
ACOC members thought that the proposed course suggested by ALIA should be supported, recognising that it was a sensible way of centralising the administrative organisation and costs of conferences. It was noted however that the first of these conferences would be in 2005, which left a long period during which nothing would be organised specifically for cataloguers apart from some cataloguing content in the Online and VALA conferences.
ACOC decided to try and assess whether a national event could be organised for cataloguers in mid-2003. This would probably be in Sydney, and would coincide with the release of the next edition of DDC. The conference topic would be classification in the broadest sense, and if another allied group could hold a conference the day before, this might increase the drawing power of the event and make it worthwhile for people to travel interstate. Members of ACOC would make various enquiries as to venue, support, etc.
Higher profile for ACOC
Peter Haddad drew attention to recent developments in the UK where the Library Association was seeking to broaden the participation of cataloguers in commenting on the revision process and asked ACOC members to consider whether ACOC should initiate something similar. Peter would provide details to members out of session.
ACOCs next teleconference is on Friday 21st June 2002.


