NACO Coordinating Committee Minutes

Date: 10 November 2003

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

Absent: Fanny Hsieh, Mickey Koth, Rick Sarcia.

1. History of NACO at Yale

Fanny and Maria should have a draft of the "Brief History of Yale's NACO participation" document ready by the committee's next meeting.

2. NACO cataloger independence

Stephen Young is now fully independent. Patricia Thurston is now independent for personal names. Abdul Hannawi has been declared independent for modern names by the Arabic Funnel Project. Manon will update the committee's web page with this information.

Manon sent a query to the PCCList asking about policies that other PCC libraries have put in place for declaring individual catalogers independent. Although a few persons responded to the list, many others responded to her privately. Manon will send a compilation of the responses received to the group for discussion at our next meeting.

3. 781 field in authority records

SUBDIVISION LINKING ENTRY--GEOGRAPHIC SUBDIVISION
http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ecadlink.html#mrca781

The latest update to the DCM Z1 and MARC 21 standards gives NACO participants the option of including the 781 field in authority records coded 151. It also requires catalogers to make corrections to any existing 781 fields if the heading in the 151 field changes.

After considering whether to make adding the 781 field mandatory for Yale's NACO catalogers, the Committee recommended that the 781 should be an optional addition. Manon will send a note to YULCAT-L warning catalogers that they might start seeing the field in authority records, explaining what it means, specifying that adding it to new records is optional, but that correcting existing 781 fields (when necessary) is mandatory.

4. "Finding Biographical Information" class

Emily Horning, of Research Services and Collections, has graciously offered to teach a "Finding Biographical Information" class for cataloging staff who do NACO work. Manon will coordinate with Emily on scheduling, etc.

5. SACO news

Two pieces of information excerpted from a recent posting to the SACO discussion list:

--"The Task Group on SACO Program Development is still drafting its final report that will be available soon. The first draft of the final report has been circulated among Task Group members; it is anticipated that the comprehensive report will be available in time for Midwinter 2003 in San Diego."

--"SACO participants should benefit from the new SACO "feedback" mechanism which has been developed and instituted. This software program automatically notifies SACO contributors when subject proposals have been downloaded into the authority file and that subject proposals are available for searching through LC's Web OPAC."

6. RLIN save file

The number of records in the save file has gone down but there are still quite a few older records that need to be produced or deleted. The Committee will look at the records dated 2002. Manon will assign each person a list of records to investigate. The cataloger who created the records will then be notified directly.

7. Series policy document

The Committee discussed a first draft of changes to the NACO series policy document <http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/series_policy.htm>. Manon will make further revisions and distribute among committee members for comment.