NACO Coordinating Committee Minutes

Date: 9 February 2004

Present: Steven Arakawa, Sarah Elman, Fanny Hsieh, Maria Hunenko, Cécile Mandour, Rick Sarcia, Manon Théroux (chair and recorder)

Absent: Mickey Koth.

1. NACO cataloger independence

Earl Roy has been declared independent for personal names. Tony Oddo has been granted full independence for both names and series.

2. NACO training

Manon has started NACO training for seven catalogers: Cindy Zweis, Dorothy Rachmat, Larry Heiman, Lenore Rouse, Eileen Smith, Abdul Hannawi, and Nancy Lyon. Many of these catalogers already have some prior NACO experience and the class serves as a refresher for them. They are meeting 3 hours per week at the SCML.

3. Southeast Asia Collection NACO policy decision

Manon and Steven met with Joan Swanekamp, Rich Richie, and Dorothy Rachmat, the new Southeast Asia Collection cataloger, to determine NACO policies for the cataloging of Southeast Asian materials. They agreed that Dorothy would follow existing standard Yale policies for when to create NACO authority records with one exception: names that would require cross-references need not be established for authors that are new to the Orbis catalog. Upon cataloging a second work by the author, the name should be established. Names for non-authors will be established as usual.

This compromise should help to address the backlog of materials that accumulated during the search to fill the Southeast Asia cataloger position. Nearly every name associated with the materials requires one or more cross-references according to AACR2's rules for Southeast Asian names, so creating authority records is especially time-consuming. Very few libraries are creating NACO records for Southeast Asian names (including the Library of Congress), increasing the authority record workload for Dorothy. Researchers who use the collection tend to rely on subject and keyword searches to find materials of interest rather than searching for specific authors.

4. NACO E-mail discussion list

Manon has contacted the Yale "postmaster" in charge of setting up new e-mail lists but has not heard back from him yet.

5. NACO History at Yale

To finish their chronology of Yale's NACO participation, Maria and Fanny have discovered that they need to consult a run of annual reports contained in the Catalog Department's archives in MSSA. Special permission is needed to access the documents because they are filed together with other documents of a more sensitive nature. Manon advised Maria and Fanny to draft a document based on the information they already have and then the committee can decide whether pursuing research in the departmental archives is necessary. Some gaps in the history might be acceptable. Also, other cataloging staff might posses documents that would allow them to fill in the gaps.

6. NACO Series Policy Document

The group reviewed the latest changes made to the draft document: http://www.library.yale.edu/~mtheroux/series_policy.html

It is scheduled for discussion at the Cataloging Coordinating Council (CCC) on Feb. 12.