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Automated Bibliographic Control Committee Minutes
Jan. 13, 2001

Present: Inna Gudanets (Stanford), Tatiana G. Barr (Florida), Jackie Byrd (Indiana), Barbara Conaty (LC), John DeSantis (Dartmouth), Beth Feinberg (UCLA), Diana Greene (NYU), Jared Ingersoll (Columbia), Tim Larson (Indiana), Sandra Levy (Chicago), Bob Morgan (LC), Nina Palmin (LC), Janice Pilch (Illinois), Marek Sroka (Illinois), George Toth (LC), Lydia Wasylenko (Syracuse), Keith Westover (BYU)

The minutes of the July 2000 meeting were approved with the following revision: "LC Slavic Division" changed to "LC Slavic Cataloging units".

The beginning of the meeting included discussions on a number of issues, including:

  • Some problems with the decision to code Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian as different languages were discussed.
  • The staff members from LC reported that cataloging staff at LC was being downsized, but the amount of work to be done has not lessened. It was reported that LC has approximately 25-30 Slavic catalogers, although they also have other assignments.
  • The need to revise the Cyrillic abbreviation list in AACR2 was identified. It was suggested that ABC work on a list of words to be added to the list. An email will be posted to slavlibs asking for words to be included. It was suggested that the list be sent to = Barbara Tillett, chief CSPO, or Thompson Yee, CSPO.
  • LC receipts for Russian and Polish are increasing. There are good publications coming in from the Czech Republic, Hungary. Receipts are down from Slovenia and Slovakia.
  • LC reported on the effects of their Endeavor system. There are slow response time periods during the day, and training staff was a challenge. There are problems resulting from the inability to do keyword searches on authority records. The acquisitions module was difficult to implement, and the acquisitions record was scaled back to just a few fields.
  • LC has a separate database of vendor-supplied bibliographic records.
  • The cataloging of Internet resources at LC may be decentralized. Currently a small team does all of this cataloging, and others may become involved.
The meeting ended with an extensive tour of the cataloging area at LC and a look at the Jefferson Building and the reading room. During the tour, a number of additional issues were discussed, including:
  • The effect of the implementation of Endeavor on cataloging productivity and quotas
  • The workflow, i.e. how materials arrive in cataloging and are disseminated to catalogers
  • The working conditions at LC
  • The benefits and compensation for LC catalogers
Submitted by Jackie Byrd

Last updated 03/16/01