NACO Coordinating Committee Minutes

Date: 8 July 2003

Present: Manon Théroux (chair), Steven Arakawa, Sarah Elman, Fanny Hsieh, Maria Hunenko, Cécile Mandour.

Absent: Mickey Koth.

1. Administrative Changes

The NACO Coordinating Committee and the NACO Series Review Group agreed to merge. After some discussion as to what to call the newly merged committee, the name "NACO Coordinating & Review Committee" was tentatively agreed upon. It was thought that this name would better reflect the significant amount of time that committee members spent reviewing authority records created by catalog librarians not yet independent of review. The committee will report to the Cataloging Coordinating Council rather than to the Chief Catalog Librarian.

[Note: the committee later decided to retain the name "NACO Coordinating Committee" and instead draft a charge elaborating the committee's various responsibilities].

2. Web Pages in Need of Revision

Manon will update and merge the web pages of the NACO Coordinating Committee and the NACO Series Review Group:

http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/naco.htm
http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/nacoseries.htm

[Note: these pages have been deleted and the new page mounted: http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/ncc.html]

3. Division of Reviewing/Training Responsibilities

Rather than having each reviewer be responsible for training new catalogers in their areas, Manon will now be doing NACO training for all new catalogers. This will provide more consistent training and allow reviewers to devote more time to record review.

The Library is working towards the model of each cataloging unit having its own internal NACO reviewer. With the reassignment of Steven Arakawa, the Arts & Sciences Team in the SML Catalog Department is now without a regular reviewer. Maria and Cécile have been helping to review Arts & Sciences Team records. Manon will ask Rick Sarcia, who is independent for series and very close to being independent for names, whether he would be willing to serve as the team's regular NACO reviewer. He would be able to review series immediately and names as soon as he is fully independent.

[Note: Rick accepted and is now a member of the Committee].

Matthew Beacom will now be reviewed by Steven instead of Manon; Abdul Hannawi will be reviewed by Manon and the Arabic Funnel Project.

4. Annual Report

Manon will be including the total number of new and updated authority records contributed by each NACO cataloger from July 2002 through June 2003 in the Annual Report. She can get statistics for NACO catalogers within the SML Catalog Department from Randy Main. Reviewers who are responsible for units outside the Department should ask these catalogers for their statistics and submit the numbers to Manon as soon as possible. Manon already has numbers for Karen Spicher and Mickey Koth.

Reviewers should also submit an estimate of the total number of hours they spent on NACO training and revising from July 2002 through June 2003.

5. PCC Train-the-Series-Trainer

Manon will be attending the first-ever PCC Train-the-Series-Trainer workshop at the Library of Congress in October.

6. NACO Series Training Manual

Manon has made a master copy of the NACO Series Training Manual used by Judy Kuhagen at the recent Yale training session. She will ask Randy to make copies for staff who only have manuals from the 1999 training and for new staff.

7. RLG Authority Design User Focus Group

Manon and Mickey are members of this focus group. The group is helping RLG design its new authority file interface. More information is available at: http://www.rlg.org/newtsclient.html . Decisions made by RLG thus far include:

* Retain earlier versions of name and subject authority records.

* Replace RLIN mnemonics in the fixed fields with MARC 21 tags; a MARC editor will display the MARC 21 name of each byte in the field and valid values. (Cannot enter an invalid value.)

* Use the LC's record ID as carried in the 001 field of the authority record as the NAF ID (no more "NAFL, NAFR, NAFO" RLIN prefixes). Instead of two separate indexes -- one for LCCN and one for RLIN ID. will have only one index. Searching by LCCN will be the same as by ID and can be searched exactly the same way. (Currently, LCCN n 93041788 converts to ID NAFL9341788 -- with left-most zeros removed in the numeric augmentation.)

* User can enter saved records which automatically expire after 60 days if not put into production.

* Support generating an authority heading from a heading in a bibliographic record either in the RLG Union Catalog or in the user's local system (if the local system's server supports Use Attribute 12).

Manon reported that the focus group has recently been discussing the advisability of implementing a cre* command, which would allow one to derive new authority records from existing ones.

Committee members asked for more information on the following topics: whether RLG would notify institutions of headings deleted from the save file after 60 days, whether a better macro functionality might be developed (e.g. allowing the ability to input multiple fields at once), and whether customized templates might be possible. There was also some discussion on whether MacroExpress currently works with RLIN.

8. Yale's RLIN Save File Statistics

As of July 7, 2003:

CtY 266 total (includes 110 from 2003)
CtY-BR 105 total (includes 90 from 2003)
CtY-BA 0
CtY-D 0
CtY East Asia 8 total (includes 8 from 2003)
CtY-J 29 total (includes 13 from 2003)
CtY MSSA 0
CtY-M 0
CtY-Mus 61 total (includes 3 from 2003)
CtY-N 40 total (includes 39 from 2003)
CtY-SSE 9 total (includes 9 from 2003)

Manon encouraged reviewers to continue to work with catalogers in their respective areas to get these save file records produced in a more timely fashion.

9. Agenda Items for Next Meeting

Manon asked committee members to review the "NACO Series Authority Records : Policy and Examples" page and bring suggestions for changes and additions to the next meeting:

http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/series_policy.htm

Cecile suggested that the group also review its policies for granting independence to individual catalogers:

http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/naco_ind.htm

http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/ticks.htm

Manon will set up a regular monthly time slot for future meetings.