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Automated Bibliographic Control Committee Minutes
June 16, 2001


Present: Inna Gudanets (Stanford), Tatiana G. Barr (Florida), Diana Brooking (Washington), Mischa Buczkowski (Oregon), Jackie Byrd (Indiana), Brenda Carter (Pittsburgh), Joanna Dyla (Stanford), Beth Feinberg (UCLA), Diana Greene (NYU), Michael Herrick (Harvard), Jared Ingersoll (Columbia), Sandra Levy (Chicago), Janice Pilch (Illinois), Karen Rondestvedt (Stanford), Leena Siegelbaum (Harvard Law School), Grazyna Slanda (Harvard), Beth Snyder (Michigan), Marek Sroka (Illinois), Anna Sylvester (OCLC)

Minutes: The minutes of the January 2001 meeting were approved.

Languages, language codes, etc.: A letter drafted by Inna Gudanets was discussed. The letter, to be sent to the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office, addresses the confusion and difficulty surrounding the decision to separate the "Serbo-Croatian" language into three separate languages (Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian) for cataloging purposes. The issue of the letter will be continued by next year's committee. Among the points made during the discussion were:

  • If the language can't be determined, add a 546 field, "In Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian"
  • Have the differences between the languages researched to give guidance to catalogers in distinguishing the languages
  • Lack of guidance will result in inconsistent records
  • The dialects overlap--some Serbian dialects are closer to Croatian than to Serbian

Cyrillic alphabet abbreviations enhancement: Inna Gudanets distributed a draft of Russian language additions to the list of Cyrillic alphabet abbreviations in Appendix B of AACR2. The list, when finalized, will be sent to Bob Maxwell, an ACRL liaison, along with a proposal explaining why the list needs to be updated. Work on the suggested additions to the list will be continued by next year's committee. Among the points made during the discussion were:
  • The proposal should be done in stages, beginning with the Cyrillic list. Other Cyrillic alphabet languages will be added. The Roman alphabet languages will be done later, after the success of the proposed Cyrillic list can be evaluated
  • Abbreviations could cause problems for keyword searches
  • Abbreviations need to be "natural", so that an abbreviation for one word would not be confused with another

Princeton's Slavic Cataloging Manual: Tatiana Barr reported that Jim Weinheimer is leaving Princeton and the Slavic cataloging field. He has offered SEES the file for Princeton's Slavic Cataloging Manual, so that SEES could take over the project of the manual. The manual will also remain on Princeton's website, but it will not be updated. Those in attendance felt that it is important that the person who works on the manual be actively involved in Slavic cataloging. Tatiana will get the file from Jim, and the committee will decide where the manual should go.

Liaison to CCDA: A new liaison to the CCDA from the Slavic cataloging community is needed. This is a two-year appointment. One problem is that many of the CCDA's meeting conflict with SEES meetings. This will be decided by next year's committee.

Positions available: Several people mentioned Slavic cataloging vacancies at their institutions, including Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford.

Submitted by Jackie Byrd

Last updated 01/10/02