[Yulcat-l] ALA Exec Board on LC series decision

[Steven Arakawa]

This was posted late today on AUTOCAT.

Date:         Tue, 16 May 2006 14:24:10 -0500
Reply-To: AUTOCAT <AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>,
         Janet Swan Hill <janet.hill at colorado.edu>
Sender: AUTOCAT <AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Janet Swan Hill <janet.hill at colorado.edu>
Subject: ALA Board statement: Bib./Cataloging Services at LC
To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
Precedence: list

Status:

Please note the following statement issued by the ALA Executive Board.
It was faxed to recipients yesterday and posted to ALA Council and Members
lists this morning.  Note especially the desire for a meeting among
interested parties to discuss future roles, etc.  Distribution was to
Billington, Marcum, Jt Ctte on the Library, OCLC, GPO, ARL, PCC, and the
national libraries of Medicine and Agriculture.

                      ------------------------------
  Statement concerning Bibliographic/Cataloging Services at the Library of
Congress

On April 20, 2006 the Library of Congress announced that as of May 1,
2006, it would cease performing series authority work for the
bibliographic records it creates.  The announcement was greeted with
dismay in the library community, particularly among catalogers, in part
because of the substance of the decision; in part because of the shortness
of notice given; and in part because the decision was reached without
sufficient consultation with the library community.

As a result of this response and to enable libraries to plan their
operational response to LC's new practice, the Library of Congress delayed
implementation of the change until June 1, 2006.  Although an avenue for
comment was provided in the announcement of the delay, it appeared that
there was no intent to consider modification of the decision based on
comments received.

While the delay is welcome, forty days still allows far too little time
for libraries to understand the full implications of the decision, to
assess their options, and to make adequate plans for how or whether they
will continue to provide authority control for any or all series in their
own catalogs.  Controlled access to series information is one of the
important ways by which libraries and library users discover information
or make it available to others.  Keyword search is not an adequate
substitute for authority-controlled series access, especially over time as
variants and name changes proliferate, and as errors enter even the best
databases.

At the same time as the policy regarding series authority control was
being prepared, announced, and discussed, officials at the Library of
Congress were indicating publicly that the Library is actively considering
alteration of other cataloging practices, such as abandonment or radical
alteration of application of the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
These changes would also have a significant negative financial impact on
the nation's libraries and their users.  They have been greeted with
concern not only from the library community, but also by library users.

The Library of Congress has occupied a leadership position in the
development of standards of practice for bibliographic access to library
materials for more than a century.  Library of Congress cataloging is the
largest single body of bibliographic records that is shared by libraries
across the nation.  These records provide the means by which any library -
whether it be a public library, school library, college or university
library, museum library, or any other library -- is able to provide
adequate access to its collections to its users.  The Library is funded by
Congress to perform these, among other, functions on behalf of the
nation's libraries.

The cataloging performed by the Library of Congress and made available to
the nation's libraries is one of the most critical national functions of
the Library of Congress.  Any diminution of the quality or quantity of
cataloging provided by the Library of Congress has an enormous financial
impact on all of the nation's libraries, as the work that the Library of
Congress had previously performed must either be taken up by individual
libraries, often doing work in duplicate, or it must be abandoned
altogether.  Any diminution of the quality or quantity of cataloging
provided by the Library of Congress also has an enormous impact on the
users of the nation's libraries - from the youngest child to the oldest
man or woman, from the recreational reader to the most serious researcher
- in terms of lessened ability to locate and identify desired information.

On behalf of its more than 66,000 members, the American Library
Association expresses its dismay at the impact that Library of Congress
action in the area of bibliographic control will have on all of its
members, and on the public they serve.  Accordingly, ALA urges the Library
of Congress to delay further implementation of its decision regarding
providing series authority control for bibliographic records for
sufficient time to enable informed response from the library community,
including from organizations central to bibliographic control such as the
American Library Association, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and
OCLC.  Further, ALA urges the Library of Congress to consider substantive
modification of its series control proposal in accordance with
recommendations and suggestions from the above bodies and others.

The American Library Association is also concerned at the manner in which
the series authority decision was reached and announced, without
sufficient opportunity for the library and cataloging community to discuss
the impact of the decision, or to suggest modifications to it that would
lessen its negative impact.  Accordingly, the ALA urges the Library of
Congress to consult broadly with the library community, including
organizations central to bibliographic control, regarding any future
decisions to substantively modify the content of bibliographic records,
and to take potential financial impact on all types of libraries, and the
impact on access to library materials by all types of library users into
account in reaching its decisions.  It appears that the importance of
Library of Congress cataloging to the nation's libraries and to the
development of an educated and informed populace is not sufficiently
appreciated by the Library's senior administration.  Broad consultation of
the sort described would provide a means for the Library to understand
better both the costs and benefits to others of the service they provide,
so that these matters can be adequately considered in its decision making
processes.

In addition, the American Library Association thinks it imperative that
there be a meeting of representatives of the Library of Congress, the ALA,
and other interested bodies such as the Program for Cooperative
Cataloging, OCLC, the Association of Research Libraries, the National
Libraries of Agriculture and Medicine, and the Government Printing Office,
for the purpose of discussions of the future shared responsibilities and
roles of these bodies in leadership and standards development for
bibliographic control and intellectual access, and in the creation and
provision of quality bibliographic records.

Adopted by the American Library Association Executive Board May 12, 2006
                      --------------------------

I cannot, in 17 years on Council and/or Executive Board, recall the EB
issuing anything of this ilk.

Marcum has indeed communicated with the directors of the ARL Libraries --
speaking in general terms of the future.  But the library world consists
of libraries beyond ARL, and the people in the best position to understand
the impact of cataloging decisions are usually not the directors, and
general statements are not the same as detailed decisions.

Janet Swan Hill
Associate Director for Technical Services
University of Colorado Libraries
CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
janet.hill at colorado.edu

----------------------------------------------------------
Steven Arakawa
Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation
Catalog Dept. Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University.
P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240
(203)432-8286 steven.arakawa at yale.edu