Teleconference 18 February 2008
Present: Ebe Kartus (ALIA: Chair), Ann Huthwaite (ALIA), Philip Hider (ALIA), Deirdre Kiorgaard (NLA), Julie Whiting (NLA), Rob Walls (NLA), Anne Robertson (EPC representative)
Apologies: None
Minutes: Catherine Argus (NLA)
Welcome
Ebe Kartus, the Chair of ACOC, opened the meeting at 8.35am
1 & 2. Minutes of previous face-to-face meeting on 2 April 2007 and Business Arising
Item 5 ACOC membership and Terms of Reference
Ebe Kartus was re-elected as the ACOC Chair.
Deirdre Kiorgaard was re-elected as the ACOC representative to the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC).
ACOC re-affirmed that the term for membership of ACOC is three years.
Actions:
- Ebe Kartus to complete the re-working of the ACOC Terms of Reference to include agreed changes, for forwarding to ALIA and Jan Fullerton for confirmation.
Item 6 DDC
Actions:
- Philip Hider to put out a call for subject experts on the catlibs and aliacatlibs email lists.
3. ACOC website
ACOC discussed the content on the ACOC website and how the website could be improved.
4. ACOC position statement
The ACOC position statement regarding the cataloguing skills and knowledge required of entry-level library and information management graduates has been endorsed by the National Library of Australia. The position statement was also sent to the ALIA Education and Professional Development Committee, for endorsement, but a response has not yet been received.
ACOC discussed strategies to make the position statement more widely known.
5. EPC report
Anne Robertson gave a report on activities of the DDC Editorial Policy Committee.
- Four new members have joined the EPC, one of whom is familiar with the abridged Dewey.
- DDC editors are seeking to improve the classification of modern music.
- The sale of hard-copy DDC continues to be satisfactory.
- An online education series has been launched.
- Work continues to make the education numbers more international and the religion number less Christian-centric.
- The Australian history subdivisions have not yet been finalised.
- The move to using common language and removing peculiarities continues.
6. 2008 ACOC seminar
ACOC discussed arrangements for the ACOC seminar to be held in Sydney on Friday 24 October, the day after the Libraries Australia forum. The working title of the seminar is ‘Towards RDA’ and will focus on setting the scene for RDA.
7. RDA training
It was agreed that ACOC’s role is to facilitate training, but that existing training providers should deliver the actual training courses. The suggestion was made to meet with educators and training providers in conjunction with the Libraries Australia forum. ACOC agreed to issue a series of statements to clearly define ACOC’s role, and co-sponsor an email discussion list with the National Library of Australia, which could be used to point libraries in the direction of training resources.
8. JSC business
Deirdre Kiorgaard highlighted the need to have a back-up ACOC representative to JSC, given that RDA development is now in a critical phase. Julie Whiting was confirmed as the back-up.
ACOC agreed that it would be desirable to hold another face-to-face meeting in early September to discuss the full draft of RDA and finalise the ACOC response.
A. RDA – JSC documents
Deirdre Kiorgaard outlined recent changes to the structure and organisation of RDA, the ACOC discussed the following sections:
5JSC/Editor/4
ACOC acknowledged the difficulty of aligning RDA instructions with user tasks and with implementation scenarios.
ACOC felt that the division between attributes and relationships is not as clear as it could be. It was suggested that the titles of both sections and chapters should refer to attributes or relationships rather than user tasks.
ACOC discussed if the separate numbering of sections and chapters is likely to cause confusion.
ACOC agreed that widespread understanding by cataloguers of the differences between implementation scenarios 1, 2, and 3 would be critical to the successful implementation of RDA. It was suggested that the implementation scenarios should be one of the topics covered at the ACOC seminar.
5JSC/RDA/Sections 2-4, 9
General
ACOC discussed the questions in the cover letter.
5.8 Status of preferred access point
ACOC felt that the values listed in the draft were not as useful as they could be but did not suggest specific changes or additions.
Chapter 6 Identifiers for works and expressions + Section 3 Identifiers for persons, families and corporate bodies
ACOC noted that it is not currently possible to “require” such identifiers. It was suggested that they should be “optional” for the initial RDA release and made ‘required’ at the appropriate time in the future.
6.24 Preferred title for a legal work
ACOC agreed to seek the opinion of specialist law librarians.
6.28.1.3 General instructions on theological creeds, confessions of faith, etc.
ACOC agreed to seek the opinion of specialist theological librarians.
8.10 Status of preferred access point.
ACOC felt that the existing levels from MARC are adequate.
9.8 Gender
ACOC had no suggestions for other values.
10.4.0.3 Recording type of family
ACOC questioned if Australian Indigenous groups would be adequately covered by the listed terms.
16 Identifiers for places
ACOC briefly discussed the issue of requiring identifiers for places.
Section 3
ACOC discussed the suggestion to abbreviate the phrase “persons, families and corporate bodies” to “persons, etc.”
ACOC noted that many libraries do not currently do authority work and suggested that the potential consequences for meeting the functional objectives and principles at 8.2 should be made clear.
Chapter 9
ACOC suggested that the option to record the religion and ethnicity of the person should be offered as an option, possibly under 9.14.
5JSC/LC/11
ACOC discussed if the list of roles would be adequate for art and films. In particular, concern was expressed about the limited application of some terms and potential loss of specificity. For example, the role term “artist” is the only one that can be recorded for creators of artistic works because more specific terms such as “etcher” or “printmaker” are limited to use in association with manifestation.
‘Writer of added commentary’ on Page 8
ACOC questioned if “Writer of added commentary” should be made a sub-term under “Writer of added text” or if “Writer of added lyrics” be separated from “Writer of added text”.
9. Other Business
Rob Walls has withdrawn as the ACOC representative on the Standards Australia Technical Committee IT19. It was agreed that it is not necessary for ACOC to nominate a replacement representative at this stage.
Meeting closed at 5.10pm.
Next teleconference: 7 April 2008


