ALCTS - Association for Library Collections & Technical Services
AACR2-2002 & Metadata Institute
November 1 – 2, 2002
Chicago, Illinois
Meeting report prepared by Sharon Rankin
Introduction
Over 100 librarians attended this Institute and heard presentations directly from experts in the cataloguing & metadata world. Most presentations were PowerPoint and the institute workbook has copies of most slides. The institute would have benefited from hands on exercises by the participants; however, the numerous examples displayed during the presentations reinforced the basic concepts.
This meeting report contains highlights and remarks from each session. I did annotate the Institute workbook with notes and hopefully they will be useful to others in the LTS department.
ALTCS will be holding a pre-conference on metadata before ALA 2003 in Toronto.
Details will appear on the ALCTS website soon.
Friday, November 1, 2002
AACR and Metadata: Library opportunities in the Global Semantic Web – LC,
IFLA, Dublin Core, Virtual International Authority Files, and More
Dr. Barbara Tillett’s (LC, Chief Cataloguing & Support) presentation was exceptional and it is easy to see why she is a leader and valuable participant in the international work to create a new model being proposed for bibliographic description.
She explained the new terminology proposed in IFLA’s FRBR model – Functional
Requirements for Bibliographic Records.
A work is the intellectual, artistic idea.
An expression is the artistic realization of the work.
The manifestation is the physical form of the expression.
The item is one physical example of the manifestation
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 1

Snippets from her presentation:
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Cutter’s objectives for the catalogue still hold true today.
We only need to catalogue what is selected.
Dublin Core was created for authors to use at the point of the creation.
We need to have more machine creation of metadata.
The JSC (Joint Steering Committee) meets more often now. Expect the rules to be changed more frequently. IFLA will be meeting internationally with rule makers from many different countries/communities to build consensus and to change the model to accommodate cultural differences.
AACR2 2002 recent revision – the most significant change is the new definition of chief source and the need for cataloguers to use their judgment now more than ever.
Future revisions of AACR2 – a new introduction to include the principles, objectives using FRBR terminology. JSC has a strategic plan – watch for it on the web site.
JSC has already been thinking about the requirements for AACR3. Chapter 1 rewriting for common general rules shared by all formats. Chapter 21 needs to be reworked and LC is currently looking for help on this. (Pat to help?) Authority control will be written to incorporate FRBR concepts.
She is very interested in building virtual authority files and cited examples of work in this area. The OAI initiatives – the ability for server programs to harvest metadata from remote files is an important building block for this work. LC has a project with the German National Bibliography and OCLC to test this model.
The LC web site (CPSO) will soon have training tools available to use to explain the AACR2 revisions.
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LC’s Voyager system will beta Unicode this year but will not be in a position to offer this functionality until 2004.
More Than Books: Access to Locally Held Materials in Alternative Media
Dr. Shelia S. Intner (Professor at Simmons GSLIS) condensed the rule changes to five principles and she illustrated these with a discussion of the records to be created for a
VHS video recording, a DVD video recording, a baseball card, and a gavel. She has 30 years experience in teaching cataloguing and has an extensive bibliography of publications.
1.
Catalogue the item in hand.
2.
Transcribe what is on the item.
3.
Sources for bib data vary by the kind of item.
4.
AACR2 allows for variations – there are many right ways.
5.
Cataloguer’s must exercise judgment in their decisions about bib info. Do not be afraid to make a rule interpretation before LC does!
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 2

The metadata created for an item should allow a user to do the following:
Identify a specific unique item.
Explain the content and context in a general way.
Select the item from a group of related items.
Retrieve the item from the location where it is stored.
Chapter 3 Twenty Years Later: Changes in Cataloguing Cartographic materials .
Mary Larsgaard is an energetic map cataloguer at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, an institution with the largest map and digital image collection in North
America. We were each given a map (courtesy of Map Link and a scale finder … I shall give these to Karen J.) To use as references during the presentation.
The AACR2 2002 rule changes for maps are in area 3.3 Mathematical data area.
Mary reviewed each change and explained how the changes will allow for better description of electronic/digital map items.
The principle of scale does not easily apply for a digital map. Unless it is stated as part of the title, it cannot be determined. Resolution is the element to be described rather than scale and IFLA is working on a standard for this. It is now possible to code for decimal degrees, minutes and seconds. If you need assistance converting or transforming between coordinate measurements (the record can only have one measure), search on the web for “coordinates conversion” for free software to do the conversion for you.
Field 352 is new for digital maps and records the raster/vector and file type. This field needs to file after the 255. (Question for Pat – can the Aleph display of MARC 21 fields been changed?)
Fields 342 and 343 add geospatical info that is used by Arc View programs to view the map. These are very important fields. MARBI needs to add some punctuation conventions and display constants for these fields.
Mary seemed very approachable and willing to help other institutions and their librarians on questions concerning map cataloguing.
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 3

Metadata Schemas and Controlled Vocabularies for Art, Architecture, and Material
Culture
Dr. Murtha Baca (Head, Standards & Vocabulary Programs & Digital Resources) at the Getty Art Institute is an enthusiastic and inspiring metadata creator and advocate.
Her presentation slides are not included in the Institute workbook, due to the fact that they were primarily samples of digital projects/web sites and images. The Institute workbook contains a selected bibliography of metadata and cultural heritage information standards and a very useful glossary of metadata terms (adapted and expanded from
Introduction to Metadata .).
Dr. Baca was very frank in her review of the good, the bad and the ugly in the digital library project world. Digital library projects should be aware of the five “c”s.
Content, Creation, Cataloguing, Controlled Vocabulary & Copyright. The Getty has been very active in creating controlled vocabulary and standards for their collections. Dr. Baca is chairing the Getty, Standards Working Group, who is mandated to bring cohesion and access to their various collections. A new searching interface is almost ready for public use. It uses imbedded metatag keywords from the ULAN (Union List of Artists Names) database.
It is important to select the right metadata schema for your project and this should be based on an understanding of the user community. You may need to chose from an existing schema (CDWA, VRA) and create your own application profile. You may need to adapt an existing controlled vocabulary. There are many schema crosswalks that have already been created to guide librarians.
Amendments 2001: Changes to Chapter 9
Nancy Olson is a retired emeritus professor from Minnesota State University,
Manekato, and an expert on AV and electronic resource cataloguing. Nancy’s presentation was PowerPoint free due to the tendency of the technology to cause her migraines. Throughout her presentation she used a record created for the software program entitled; Adobe In Design 2.0 to illustrate the Chapter 9 changes.
Nancy’s tips and tricks were the following:
Ignore area 3 until things get sorted out.
Area 5 – 1 CD – ROM now defined and much clearer for users.
9.5B1 – controversy over the name DVD or DVD-ROM. (Tillett vs. Olson) Rule says to use what the users will ask for.
Field 538 System Requirements should display as the first note. If the system requirements are common do not include.
Notes – enter the notes in the order in which they appear in the rules.
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 4

Saturday, November 2, 2002
Developing a Metadata Strategy
Grace Agnew , Associate University Librarian for Digital Library Systems at
Rutgers University (formerly at Georgia Tech) was a very impressive speaker and metadata enthusiast. Her presentation was a well-balanced combination of the theoretical and practical information needed to prepare a metadata strategy for a library/university.
The PowerPoint slides in the workbook are detailed report of her talk. So to is her
LITA publication entitled : Getting Mileage out of Metadata . The following are snippets of her presentation that I found informative. She spends most of her time working with faculty and societies who are often new to the concepts of bibliographic description that librarians are very familiar with.
Metadata is data about data or stuff about stuff.
AACR2 needs to do a better job of interpreting data in an unambiguous way for the user. “ For holdings see main entry” – user is found wandering in the library lobby or main entry looking for the holdings sign.
The most important first step is to make a model of how the information will be used by the user community, without it, your efforts to build metadata may go down the wrong track.
We have a moral obligation to register (with a time stamp) the namespace and the schema to ensure the files are useable.
You may need to customize the metadata, but do it only for very good reasons based on user’s needs.
XML as a binding for metadata is a very powerful export tool and is not hard to do – one week by a competent programmer.
Dublin Core is a very good protocol for sharing metadata between disparate systems.
Grace never figured out how to use the Classification section of the IMS record model. (Note for Chris – we are not alone.)
There should be a MARC export program for all digital projects so the OPAC can reference the items or collection.
It is very important for a library/institution to define a core set of metadata elements that all collections share based on the FRBR concepts. (E.g. RUCore)
Rutgers will be using the MetaLib (ExLibris?) content management system to supply XML data for all of the university web pages.
Metadata schemes are in a state of flux; if you invest heavily you may live to regret it. Keep operability alive above all else. Make sure your scheme can map to the main schemes.
She has recently submitted a DC application profile for video metadata.
Grace suggests the best way to get feedback about a website is to ask the following question: “List the top 10 ways this website sucks! “…. Then you will really find out where your users think improvements should be made.
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 5

The new Chapter 12 for AACR 2002
Steve Shadle is a serials cataloguing librarian and educator at the University of
Washington Libraries (a CONSER Library). His presentation reviewed the new chapter
12 – Continuing resources, explaining the concept definitions, new conceptual categories, and specific changes for serials. The 35 pages of PowerPoint slides in the Institute workbook say it all.
Electronic Integrating resources: AACR 2002 for Updating Web sites and databases
Steven Miller (University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee) presented the specific rule changes for electronic integrating resources from the perspective of a monograph cataloguer. The new rules now make it much easier to describe web sites and databases because their seriality can now be described and the description can now be based on the iteration that is available. (This is called integrated entry cataloguing). His presentation is contained in 16 pages of PowerPoint slides. Steven created two sample records for electronic integrating resource, a updating web site and a web site with multiple data element changes to illustrate the new rules.
There ought to be a law: AACR 2002 revision, Integrating Resources and Updating
Loose-Leafs
Rhonda Lawrence (UCLA Law Library) covered “Integrating Resources
(Loose-Leafs)”, beginning with a review of the types of legal publications and then continuing to describe the specifics of loose-leafs. These publications have been the ban of existence for all law librarians and it seems that Rhonda has been personally responsible for ensuring that this recent revision of AACR2 includes rule changes to accommodate this format. Her presentation is contained in 55 pages of PowerPoint slides
(164 slides) in the Institute workbook. It is a step-by-step guide to the decisions to be made and the coding to be followed for loose leafs.
ALCTS AACR2 2002 and Metadata Institute, Meeting Report, S. Rankin, December 2, 2002. page. 6