Standards—a second look
Rebecca Culbertson
ALCTS CCS-EXEC COMMITTEE Forum
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011
Cataloging standards
• 1. What are standards and where do they live?
• 2. Why do we spend so much time on developing
them?
• 2. Who uses them? And where do they live?
• 3. What is the development process?
• 4. How do we get the word out?
• 5. Levels of standards
• 6. What happens when standards conflict?
Why do we have standards?
• To allow for the “Timely creation of authoritative,
cost-effective bibliographic and authority records
by knowledgeable catalogers at many
institutions”
• Sets up patterns so that catalogers can spend less
time on repetitive processes
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/macros.html
• Essential with consortia to have agreement
• Better user experience because of consistency
• Makes the life of a trainer easier
What standards do catalogers use?
• Standards documentation can be found as
– Rules
The Biggies: AACR2 (Content standard); MARC
format (Encoding standard)
– Guidelines and “Best Practices”
• BSRs AND CSRs
• Provider-Neutral Guidelines
• OLAC Streaming Media
• Standards can be full or floor—we just have to
agree
Full vs. Floor Standards
• First the serial cataloging developed the
CONSER Standard Record (CSR)
• Next PCC developed the BIBCO Standard
Record (BSR) for books
• Tendency is to move towards a ONE level
standard for BIBCO catalogers using an 042
code of “pcc”—not true for OCLC non 042
records (OCLC I and K)
Cataloging as “Embryonic”
• Using FLOOR standards to “grow” records
– Will any record ever be final?
• Using FLOOR standards
– Brief (NOW) just to get it out there...
– Full (LATER) if the need arises
– Levels of detail will vary
Who decides on which standards to
use? And at what level?
• AACR2; RDA—multiple contributors
• MARC format—multiple contributors
• PCC “standards” are not just for CONSER/BIBCO
catalogers
– CONSER standard record
– BIBCO standard record
• Evolved from Core and Full –Now just one level
• First was Textual Monographs
• Now Multiple formats
Where do the PCC standards live?
Serials
• http://loc.gov/acq/conser/
– CONSER
•
•
•
•
•
CONSER Standard Record
Field 588
Electronic serials (CCM Module 31)
Integrating Resources: a Cataloging Manual
CONSER Editing Guide: Appendix O for CJK
Where do the PCC standards live?
Monographs
• BIBCO
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/bibco.ht
ml
– BIBCO Standard Record (BSRs): Oct. 1, 2010
– Provider-Neutral e-Monograph Guidelines
– Draft BIBCO supplemental requirements for emonographic resources at:
• http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR_Suppl_ER_1
3Dec-2010.pdf
Development process for PCC
Standards
• Start with a need
• Charge comes from the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo)
• PCC Standing Committees on Standards and
Automation
– Set up task groups
– Answer TG questions, review, wheedle, compare, contrast,
agree/disagree, and finally come to a consensus
– Get feedback from listservs and other concerned
catalogers
– Go through the Reviews process… again
– Report conclusions to the Policy Committee
– Finally—Implementation
A method of using the BSR (locally)
• UCSD has inputting and copy cataloging
guidelines for every format
• Decision was made to adopt the BSRs –PLUS
• Looked at each BSR Standard in a new light to
see what we wanted to add/subtract
• Committee discussed and made changes using
laptops and Google Docs!
What happens when standards
conflict?
• Important to say what standards you follow
• Important to work towards resolution at the
highest levels
• Example is the 300 field in the Streaming
Media Guidelines
• Another is AACR2 Chapter 9 and ProviderNeutral Guidelines
Suggestion for using the PCC standards
• Review each standard
• Review even if your institution is not a BIBCO
institution
• Compare with your local editing guidelines
• Make sure that what you have includes what
is in the BSR and CSR
• Optional to include more (if possible)
“Seeing Standards”
• http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metada
tamap/seeingstandards.pdf