**ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Group**

**June 23, 2006**

**ALA Annual 2006**

# Marriott New Orleans at the Convention Center, Crescent A/B

### Minutes

**In attendance:**

Jennifer Bowen (University of Rochester-guest speaker)

Karen Calhoun (Cornell University-chair)

Beth Picknally Camden (University of Pennsylvania)

Mechael Charbonneau (Indiana University)

Cynthia Clark (New York Public Library)

Chris Cole (National Agricultural Library)

Katharine Treptow Farrell (Princeton University)

Robin Fradenburgh (University of Texas at Austin)

Lisa German (Pennsylvania State University)

Nancy Gibbs (Duke University)

Peggy Johnson (University of Minnesota)

Arno Kastner (New York University)

Joe Kiegel (University of Washington)

Angela Kinney (Library of Congress)

Lee Leighton (University of California at Berkeley)

Isabella Marques de Castilla (Library of Congress)

Dianne McCutcheon (National Library of Medicine)

James Mouw (University of Chicago)

Michael Norman (University of Illinois)

Jane Edmister Penner (University of Virginia)

Sally Rogers (Ohio State University)

Cynthia Shelton (UCLA)

Joan Swanekamp (Yale University)

Catherine Tierney (Stanford University)

Beacher Wiggins (Library of Congress)

John Wilken (University of Michigan)

Robert Wolven (Columbia University)

Marilyn Wood (Harvard University)

Irene Zimmerman (University of Wisconsin)

1.  **Introductions, announcements (Karen Calhoun, chair, Cornell
    University) cited the website URL for Big Heads:
    [www.loc.gov/library/bigheads](http://www.loc.gov/library/big).**

Karen Calhoun (Cornell University) announced that Katherine English, ALA
Editions, is looking into the prospect of publishing RDA in online
format, to ensure the new standards for cataloging reach all
constituents. She further mentioned that ALA Editions invited interested
parties to a demonstration of RDA at ALA Midwinter 2006 and gave
attendees an opportunity to share their impressions. A survey of RDA is
available at: [www.rdaonline.org](http://www.rdaonline.org/).

Calhoun noted that Harvard University is recruiting a head of technical
services for the Harvard College Library and a division head for
technical services. A handout was distributed on these jobs. Calhoun
announced that Katharine Farrell from Princeton University would be the
incoming chair of Big Heads. To initiate the proceedings, all Big Heads
members introduced themselves and Calhoun reminded all to identify
themselves while speaking for the purpose of the minutes.

2.  **Election of Vice Chair/Chair-Elect (Karen)**

Katharine Farrell said there was one volunteer for the position of vice
chair/chair elect and then asked for nominations from the floor. There
were none and all Big Heads members agreed to the election of Lisa
German (Pennsylvania State University), whose name was volunteered, as
the new vice chair/chair-elect of Big Heads.

3.  **RDA (Guest: Jennifer Bowen) (30 minutes)**

**Background documents forthcoming. Discussion questions: Knowing what
you know about RDA today, will you recommend its implementation at your
library? If not, what other information do you need to make this
decision or to recommend implementation?**

On June 13, 2006, Big Heads completed a short survey on implementation
of RDA at member libraries, which is posted on the Big Heads Website at:
<http://www.loc.gov/library/bigheads/source/RDA_Survey_Responses-Jun2006.pdf>.
Jennifer Bowen, who headed this discussion, said her role is as the ALA
representative to the Joint Steering Committee (JSC). It is her job to
take the opinion of groups within ALA and put forward their position.
She said she represents the member side of ALA, not publishing. In order
to do her job effectively, she needs to hear Big Heads' opinions on RDA
and would find these discussions very helpful, giving her a sense of
where concerns are. She said she is also available to answer questions
and that Katherine English is there to represent the publishing side.
Bowen commented on some of the responses from the survey, which were
compiled by Karen Calhoun (Cornell University).

There were a variety of responses, including some comments that
recommended returning the focus on library cataloging needs in favor of
other metadata communities. Farrell (Princeton University) responded
that we do want to accommodate the needs of other metadata groups,
because by so doing we can serve the needs of libraries beyond the MARC
environment. Another comment was that libraries want to see more radical
changes with RDA. Bowen wants to see more discussion on this. Her reply
was that it is a balancing act between trying to propose ALA's position
and understand particular changes libraries would see valuable. One must
also keep in mind when talking about RDA that this an international
effort. Resolving roadblocks in common practices in the U.S. is fine,
but may prove to be more difficult internationally. Bowen asked what Big
Heads needs from RDA in order to have it fit into their vision of the
future.

Robert Wolven (Columbia University) said that what we need from the new
code is something modular, that addresses what aspects of the code would
be used for certain circumstances. Wolven said institutions need to have
a code that is flexible and with basic guidelines, but also contains
details not for the purpose of everyone following them, but to address
specific situations. In other words, we need a code that can be applied
simply. Bowen said that is the direction in which the Joint Steering
Committee is headed, towards a simpler code. In fact, the committee has
been talking about the equivalent of AACR2 concise. JSC has not made a
decision on whether to develop a version of RDA primarily for metadata
communities that has been dubbed "RDA lite," but is going in the
direction of providing more options in rules so libraries can adjust the
required elements to fit their needs. There was some discomfort
expressed in the survey about the number of options added to the code.

Catherine Tierney (Stanford University) agreed with Wolven about making
RDA simple, because of training issues, both short and long term. She
stated that libraries are going towards the notion of pulling together
works. Libraries want to make sure hierarchies are in the structure of
the code. She expressed concern about how radical ALA's approach might
be. Bowen said that within JSC they have pushed the envelope for changes
in the code and so have national libraries. There is a more progressive
approach towards revision of the code. Australians for instance are
pushing for a code that supports digital materials.

Arno Kastner (New York University) agreed that there is a general
consensus that flexibility and options are good for RDA, but other
decisions and policies have to be made. He asked, are we moving towards
each institution developing its own options and would these need to be
tracked? He believes that RDA is trying to label options clearly so
institutions can go in and make choices on what decisions need to be
made.

Joan Swanekamp (Yale University) added that she thinks people are
comfortable with very clear rules. LCRIs were well accepted because they
clarified rules. She supports a simpler code, so that other institutions
can see research libraries have made decisions to accept the same
options. If we believe in developing "cataloger's judgment," she said,
this is an opportunity to do so.

Sally Rogers (Ohio State University) said that one of the concerns
generated by people is the time it takes to develop the code. She asked
if JSC is looking at methods for streamlining development of a new code
so that it does not take so long to publish it. Bowen responded that JSC
has come a long way toward improving the process and the online
illustration of the code will help to keep it up to date faster. JSC is
building into the code a flexible structure that can accommodate new
data elements.

Survey results on the Big Heads website showed that nineteen of
twenty-six Big Heads libraries responded. Fourteen agreed and five
disagreed that knowing what they do about RDA today, they would
implement the code at their library. Bowen commented that several of
those who responded yes did so with a lukewarm answer. One person who
responded yes commented: "On a practical level, we expect to have
continued dependency on a cataloging collaborative, and we need rules
for that and some precision for describing and accessing our most
valuable assets for generations of scholars. We have some hope that the
integration of the other 2 RDA parts into the one we have seen, as well
as the online integration of the tools, will put us in an affordable
place. I have more practical hope that this will work than I do for our
ability in the next 5 years to afford and implement the wide range of
magical tools that are envisioned to solve scholars' bibliographic
precision needs. The biggest issue here is core-will 2008 be too late?
And at this juncture we are not ready to scuttle the effort with a NO
vote."

Bowen further asked if Big Heads libraries believe RDA is on the right
track and whether libraries should follow the code once it is approved.
Dianne McCutcheon (National Library of Medicine) expressed concern about
areas in RDA that NLM cannot follow, such as major/minor title changes
and the single record approach. If RDA has a flexible approach, NLM will
adopt the code, but may choose to implement it differently. McCutcheon
is also concerned about how the code will affect the cooperative
environment. Bowen said these issues are ones that have international
implications. There are international agreements with the ISSN centers,
for example, so there are limits on how far RDA can go in this area
without affecting these international agreements. Also, the single
record approach is accepted in the U.S. but not internationally. And
there is not full agreement within ALA that the single record approach
is an acceptable way to go. Bowen responded that RDA cannot tell NLM how
to code its records, but there will be mention of coding options for
other libraries in the introduction. RDA will also offer examples of
what the single record approach will look like. Bowen suggested that Big
Heads look at chapters six and seven on a technique called embedded
description that might address their needs.

Wolven said his feeling is that RDA is not on the right track. Columbia
University wants a more modern approach to applying the code. His
institution is not concerned too much about flexibility. It is more
important to think about what will be asked of vendors and publishers
with the new code. These are much more important questions than what we
will do within our own institutions.

Joan Swanekamp added that Yale University does a huge amount of original
cataloging and will be depending on copy from the utilities. She queried
Bowen about integration. Bowen responded that JSC just started a
partnership with the publishing community on a joint JSC/ONIX project,
looking at developing a common resource description framework that both
libraries and publishers can use to categorize types of materials. This
effort will inform RDA and ONIX standards. Publishers are also
interested in what libraries do with authority control and are beginning
to have conversations about this and building consistencies with
metadata provided by libraries and the publishing community.

4.  **Taiga Forum (Discussion leader: Beth Picknally Camden and Bob
    Wolven) (20 minutes)**

**From the Taiga Forum home page: "Advances in information technology
demand that AULS and Assistant Directors need to develop new solutions,
evolve to meet changing user expectations, and prepare leaders for the
future. Whether we are in technical services, collection development, or
information technology, we must develop a cross-functional vision that
makes internal organization structures more flexible, agile, and
effective" <http://www.taigaforum.org/>. Several Big Heads members
attended the Taiga Forum. Update and discussion questions: What came out
of the Forum that would inform planning for technical services? What is
a "cross-functional vision" and how might library leaders develop one?**

Beth Picknally Camden (University of Pennsylvania) led this discussion
on the Taiga Forum, which took place March 2006 in Chicago, Illinois.
The initial planning meeting was hosted by Innovative Interfaces in July
2005 at the ALA Annual Conference. As a result of that meeting, a
steering committee was created. The initial steering committee consisted
of the following leaders in the library community: Meg Bellinger (Yale
University), Stephen Bosch (University of Arizona Library), Karen
Calhoun (Cornell University), Gail Herrera (University of Mississippi
Libraries), Linda Miller (Library of Congress), Robert G. Murdoch
(Brigham Young University), Carlen Ruschoff (University of Maryland),
Mary Beth Thomson (University of Kentucky) and Robert Wolven (Columbia
University). The forum was an opportunity to discuss the future of
libraries and how libraries can move beyond their borders, transcending
traditional library functions and structures.

Robert Wolven (Columbia University) gave background on how the forum
came to be, so as to better explain what it did and did not accomplish.
The idea for the forum originated at a Big Heads meeting, recognizing
that their decisions were not necessarily relegated to just technical
services, but that there was a need to speak with public services and
other groups. The forum was constructed to get opinions from a diverse
group with common interests. Seventy-five people gathered who were
assistant or associate directors or deans at their libraries. The group
was mixed in terms of their broad range of portfolios, coming from
technical and public services and from information technology. One of
the unique aspects that shaped the forum was that there was no specific
agenda, but a general question of how to deal with the environment
emerging. The members did not necessarily intend to come out of Taiga 1
with an "action agenda." Instead, the group used provocative statements
(available on the Taiga website) to guide the discussion.

Camden covered what transpired, saying that networking was the most
exciting part of the forum. She said she made a point of moving around
in order to speak with different people. Attendees formed small groups
that tackled comments 1,4,5 and 8 from the Taiga website. Attendees were
asked to bring their institutions' current organization charts, which
were posted on the wall. Many of the charts were very traditional,
showing divisions commonly seen in traditional organizational
structures. There was general consensus among the participants that
institutions need to push change at the level of the user's speed, not
at the speed libraries set.

Wolven said what was surprising was the "hunger" for this discussion. He
was also struck by the amount of people that volunteered to do something
further, indicating a need to be reactive. The challenge is there is not
an agenda to focus on, he said, but rather a number of things to do.
Columbia University he said is in the process of strategic planning and
looking at new directions. What was valuable in this forum was hearing
how something was happening in one area and how it affects other
institutions. How do we, he asked, create opportunities to have these
discussions?

Cindy Shelton (UCLA) thought the speakers were excellent and thought
provoking. Her breakout group had a conservative outcome. The discussion
in the forum at large was good, but challenging to keep the conversation
going on cross-functional connections. She was concerned that she did
not see recording of the minutes and therefore was not clear where
things were going with next steps.

Wolven said there was energy at the forum and interest to have another
meeting, but no decision on who would organize such an event. The
steering committee will no doubt disband, so there would need to be a
sponsor for such a meeting and possible participation by the original
members of the steering committee to assist the process. At present
there is no organization in place to do this, just volunteers. Wolven
said Charles Wilts stated that ALCTS would be interested in helping to
create a cross-functional kind of event as a follow-up. Wolven commented
that there may be an opportunity with the RLG/OCLC merger to see how
those institutions go about merging their organizations and to make
observations and build an agenda for a future TAIGA forum.

Catherine Tierney (Stanford University) agreed that the forum was a
valuable opportunity for discussion and that with a subset of
institutions, perhaps a smaller forum would be more effective in the
future. The difficulty of Taiga 1 was in trying to devise next steps
minus an agenda. The group wanted to go on to next steps, but was unsure
about how to go about doing it. She found the forum valuable because she
learned about public services at other institutions and how those
services impact her library.

Lisa German (Pennsylvania State University) said she heard from a couple
of others outside her institution that there were those who felt
slighted because they were not invited. She too thought about future
next steps, since it cost a fair amount to send attendees to the
meeting. What outcome would her institution and others with attendees
expect from this meeting? Do they get just a widening of thought
processes or something more concrete?

Chris Cole (National Agricultural Library) was not surprised there were
no constructive outcomes. What he captured was the sense of how things
are accelerating. By the time you get it right, he said, it will no
longer be applicable, so don't expect a grand set of solutions to come
from the meeting, but rather instead learn from the discussions. Hearing
the discussions while not expecting answers was still enlightening.

Cindy Shelton (UCLA) urged Big Heads to take advantage of ALCTS' offer
to organize collections and technical services directors for a future
forum. Nancy Gibbs (Duke University) recalled that ALCTS is having its
50th anniversary at ALA annual 2007 in Washington, D.C. As a member of
the ALCTS Program Committee, she is willing to help shepherd this
effort.

Dianne McCutcheon (National Library of Medicine) said she would like to
have action items come from another meeting if that is scheduled. What
is it that we want to get out of this, she queried? Long discussions are
good, but ultimately how do those discussions affect change in our
organizations? In her opinion, there should be end results in what is
discussed at a future meeting. Karen Calhoun (Cornell University)
concluded the discussion by stating that the group would take this up at
the ALA Midwinter 2007 Big Heads luncheon, to come up with plan for a
future meeting if possible. In advance of the luncheon, Taiga 2 was
announced for January 18, 2007 at ALA Midwinter in Seattle, Washington.
Those interested in participating may register on the Taiga Website.

5.  **Coping with "permanent whitewater" (Discussion leader Sally
    Rogers) (30 minutes)**

The recent announcements of the OCLC/RLG merger and changing LC practice
for series access, together with the appearance of three new reports on
the future of catalogs and bibliographic services," have stimulated a
range of reactions among technical services leaders and practitioners,
from enthusiastic support to strong opposition. Discussion questions:
What trends or common threads, if any, do these announcements and
reports reveal? What are the factors underlying the wide range of
responses? In what ways have technical services leaders managed change
at their libraries? What high-level strategic priorities do we see that
might begin to be addressed through Big Heads and the collaboration of
subsets of our institutions?

Libraries have seen many changes in their catalogs and the ways in which
they provide bibliographic services. Many reports have been issued
lately on the topic of trends in bibliographic services, said Karen
Calhoun (Cornell University). She cited as examples her report
commissioned by the Library of Congress on the future of cataloging, a
document that has stimulated intense interest and discussion, and whose
full text can be found at:
<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf>. Indiana University
also produced a white paper on the future of cataloging listed at:
<http://www.iub.edu/~libtserv/pub/Future_of_Cataloging_White_Paper.pdf>
and the University of California at Berkeley is also looking into
changes it can make in its operations based on a report it has issued.
Calhoun asked the Big Heads group to address the questions in this
agenda item.

Sally Rogers (Ohio State University), leader of this discussion, said
she focused on the first and last questions in the interest of time. She
looked to attendees to fill in on the other two questions. There is a
need for collaboration among libraries, stated Rogers, and a sense of
urgency to do something. Libraries are coming up short as compared to
Google, because they have silos which make it difficult to navigate.
Libraries have federated searching but few know how to use it. There is
still much duplication of effort and an emphasis on unsustainable
models. Libraries, Rogers stated, need to re-architect their OPACs,
maintaining the backend function, but improving it. There is also a need
for automated cataloging and metadata functions. Libraries need to
reduce redundancies by collaborating on repositories, connecting with
users and integrating library services with other information services.
Overall, Rogers said, we must acquire needed skills beyond those
typically found in libraries, while finding new sources of funding. What
can Big Heads libraries do? Rogers maintained that this is a good time
to look at these issues, especially knowing that new and improved
processes will be proposed and implemented as a result of the OCLC/RLG
merger.

Rogers continued the discussion by saying that OCLC is reporting that
Google and Yahoo want more metadata for cataloging records. Libraries
are streamlining metadata, but search engines actually want to add new
metadata. Calhoun's report, she said, is a blueprint for implementing
change. Rogers pointed to four points from the Calhoun report that
support collaboration, including: 1) prepare for linkages in and out of
the catalog and/or ILS; 2) innovate and reduce costs; 3) make good
decisions based on data; and 4) find funding and partners. Rogers urged
Big Heads to focus on one of these four areas. She suggested focusing on
automation of cataloging and metadata and proposed that Big Heads form a
subgroup to look into this topic using Calhoun's report as a reference.
She suggested that Big Heads members use student assistants to build in
focus groups to tell libraries what students needs are. Ohio State
University has a project using students who teach other students to
build electronic portfolios based on what they have learned from doing
their research. Rogers would like Big Heads to build a similar focus
group as an untapped resource. This presents an opportunity to influence
the development of RDA, changing the rules to support a model that is
sustainable. She opened the floor for further discussion.

Catherine Tierney said Stanford University is examining digital files to
see what kind of indexing they can develop based on digital text. With
some items under copyright, however, there may be rights infringement
issues. She asked how other institutions are automating cataloging,
other than working with publishers on providing ONIX data. She asked
whether it is possible to get digital files for hard data and cited
African materials as an example. Karen Calhoun said Cornell University
has a number of ways to automate cataloging, including creating metadata
from excel spreadsheets based on aggregators. Rogers suggested that
vendors provide data that can be turned into MARC data by OCLC. Is there
a way to streamline automated cataloging and metadata generation, she
asked? What would it take to move that along?

Lee Leighton (University of California at Berkeley) said his institution
has automated generation of order records. His institution is dependent
on language expertise and has an incredible amount of records that need
language experts. Dianne McCutcheon (National Library of Medicine) added
that libraries need to categorize where problems are. At NLM her
institution has used staff to get subjects of works identified, then
catalogers complete the cataloging. She suggesting automating the
descriptive portion of the record and have catalogers finish the
remainder of the cataloging. Having a survey of what institutions are
doing could spark ideas, she suggested.

Chris Cole said at the National Agricultural Library there is an effort
to look at machine indexing using its own sources. There is also work
being done with FAST as a machine-readable alternative to providing
subject access. In his opinion, FAST is a much better alternative. Jim
Mouw (University of Chicago) stated that information delivery tools are
profoundly flawed. This is the reason why people are using Google,
because it works on cell phones. He characterized present day catalogs
as "tweaked 1970's generation tools." Rogers said Ohio State University
is considering how to make its OPAC more responsive to current users'
needs. This is an area where we want to guide vendors, she asserted.

Cynthia Clark (New York Public Library) said she thinks libraries can
mine from catalog searches and analyze those in conjunction with focus
groups. New York Public Library is analyzing catalog searches and finds
that 80-85 percent of searches result in one hit. This tells her that
researchers are xeroing in on what they want. In her thinking, libraries
need to look more closely at who users are and what they want libraries
to provide. New York Public Library is looking at a new ILS and will
need to find out what elements are needed in that catalog to support
users' needs.

## Robert Wolven (Columbia University) said he believes there is a need for a subset of Big Heads to come together and focus on specific issues (e.g. streamlining/automating metadata). Calhoun thought the best approach would be to find someone who could take up each topic. Michael Norman (University of Illinois) volunteered to cover the topic on automated metadata generation. Jim Mouw (University of Chicago) volunteered to coordinate a group to look at how users approach searching in different ways. Robert Wolven (Columbia University) volunteered to chair the subgroup on ways to develop linkages to get from the discovery environment to the fulfillment environment.

## Break

6.  **Janus Conference Follow-up (Discussion leader: Cindy Shelton) (10
    minutes). CCDO posted notes from their discussion in San Antonio at
    <http://janusconference.library.cornell.edu/?cat+14> (the first
    link). Update: Have CCDO and/or other groups taken ownership of one
    or more of the Janus future actions? If yes, how can Big Heads
    members keep up to date about new developments?**

On October 9-11, 2005, Cornell University Library hosted the "Janus
Conference on Research Library Collections: Managing the Shifting Ground
Between Writers and Readers," a forum dedicated to re-envisioning
collection development in research libraries. Cindy Shelton (UCLA)
served as a member of the technical services group for the Janus
Conference and was also a liaison to the conference for Big Heads. Karen
Calhoun (Cornell University) called Big Heads' attention to the two
questions posed for this topic (see above).

Cindy Shelton (UCLA) confirmed that CCDO has indeed taken ownership of
the Janus Group. At ALA Midwinter 2006, CCDO held a session as a
follow-up to the 2005 event, with breakout groups organized to define
the six charges stemming from the conference. Cindy Shelton (UCLA)
formed a starter steering group that has expanded in the last six months
to more CCDO members and other organizations that should be at the
table, including ARL, CLIR and CRL, as well as nine or ten CCDO members.
In the last 6 months, the group has tried to provide leadership for the
individual goals. CCDO wants to create working groups around the Janus
challenges. For more information on the six challenges the plenary
session identified for the future of collection development, consult:
<http://www.library.cornell.edu/janusconference/januskeys.html>.

The Janus Conference steering committee met by conference call and
during the conference, with the view that strategies will go forward
with like-minded coalitions surrounding them. CCDO wants to open up
participation and wants to hear how Big Heads would like to be a part of
this process. The group must construct a blog, select co-chairs for the
Janus challenges and have next steps for the challenges that will be
reported out at ALA Annual 2007. Most of the discussion at ALA Annual
2007 will be devoted to those challenges. The group is making good
progress on three of the challenges, while two more need further
discussion, and another is floundering and requires more attention.
There are representatives from scholarly publishing also on the steering
committee.

The three topics where progress has been made are: 1) recon (converting
the scholarly record), also an opportunity for CLIR to provide support
to create a working group to develop and begin implementing a plan for a
national mass digitization project to convert holdings in North American
research libraries; 2) procon, or ensuring objects published in the
future are available in digital form; and 3) archiving, a challenge that
is also taking direction to assure access to information resources over
time. Shelton concluded the discussion by announcing that Cornell
University will get the blog in place on its Website and will include on
the site an updated list of steering members and a description of the
action items.

7.  **Vendor cataloging discussions (Discussion leaders: Karen Calhoun
    and Beacher Wiggins) (20 minutes). Round robin on new developments
    and conversations under way to obtain catalog records for North
    American libraries from vendors. Discussion questions: What
    constitutes sufficient and acceptable vendor cataloging? How might
    key stakeholders (LC, research libraries, OCLC, vendors) best
    communicate news, plans and decisions with the library community?**

Karen Calhoun (Cornell University) shared an agenda for a meeting that
took place at Library of Congress on April 17, 2006. She briefly
summarized the contents of that meeting and asked that Beacher Wiggins
(Library of Congress) explain how the group asked for a coalition to be
formed as a result of the meeting. Wiggins chaired the meeting, which
was facilitated by Calhoun and attended by Katharine Farrell (Princeton
University), Arno Kastner (New York University), Angela Kinney, Susan
Morris (recorder) and Donald Panzera (Library of Congress), Lee Leighton
(University of California at Berkeley), Roxanne Sellberg (Northwestern
University) and Robert Wolven (Columbia University). The group
considered three issues: 1) what constitutes sufficient and acceptable
vendor cataloging; 2) what are the expectations of the Library of
Congress in its role as the national bibliographic agency for the United
States? How are other stakeholder groups to be engaged in the national
bibliographic agency's decision-making?; and 3) what to do next: what
should be the strategic direction for vendor cataloging?

During the meeting, Lee Leighton described University of California at
Berkeley's projects with Marcnow, a company with offices in the U.S.,
India and Russia, that provides innovative cataloging and IT services
designed for libraries and other content management companies. In Susan
Morris' notes, Leighton summarized the project by saying: "Berkeley
plans to have Marcnow catalog its receipts acquired through
Harrassowitz. Marcnow performs Berkeley's Slavic, Arabic, and Persian
cataloging and will soon begin cataloging its South Asian materials. The
cataloging is performed from surrogates by retired catalogers from the
Library of Congress overseas office in New Delhi, or by native speakers
of Slavic languages who live in that city. The New Delhi catalogers
communicate with Berkeley via email and conference calls as needed. The
bibliographic records, which are encoded at level \"K,\" contain up to
three subject headings as appropriate and include call numbers
shelflisted against Berkeley's local catalog. All access points are
checked against authority files, and new descriptive access points are
formulated according to AACR2, but no authority records are made or
updated. (Berkeley has a separate post‑cataloging authority workstream.)
Marcnow catalogs for Berkeley in OCLC, using Berkeley's account; thus,
the Marcnow records stream into Berkeley's catalog as part of its daily
OCLC file. To date, Marcnow has cleared several thousand titles from
Berkeley's recent backlog of Slavic, Arabic, and Persian materials. Dena
Schoen, who was a serial cataloger at Berkeley, has become the U.S. West
Coast regional manager for Harrassowitz. In a pilot project to begin
this summer, Marcnow will catalog the books that Harrassowitz supplies
to Berkeley; Marcnow will not charge Berkeley for records produced in
the pilot. Detailed arrangements remain to be worked out. "

Robert Wolven reported on conversations Columbia University has had with
Aux Amateurs de Livres, to investigate the vendor cataloging a backlog
of Columbia's current French materials constituting about 800 to 1000
titles. So far Aux Amateurs has sent Columbia a sample of bibliographic
records they have created for examination.

Beacher Wiggins (Library of Congress) talked about the Casalini Libri
Shelf-Ready Pilot Project, noting that LC will continue for a third year
since 2004 to license shelf-ready LC core-level cataloging records from
the Italian vendor, and that Casalini will continue to perform the
associated authority work. The expectation is that Library of Congress
will invest the same amount of funding in 2007 as was dedicated to the
project in 2006. Donald Panzera (Library of Congress) discussed
conversations that LC is having with the Deutsche Bibliothek on a
proposal to exchange bibliographic records for electronic serials. The
group as a whole noted that exchanging records with national libraries
could potentially be less expensive than record exchange with commercial
entities.

Beacher Wiggins also made mention of another shelf-ready pilot project
that Library of Congress entered into in 2006 with the Japanese vendor
Kinokuniya. Kinokuniya is currently providing Library of Congress with
LC core-level vendor records, which it produces directly on OCLC using
an LC account. Library of Congress staff are used to review and provide
feedback on the vendor's cataloging until it can be declared
independent.

On the topic of sufficient and acceptable cataloging, Calhoun said, the
large issue from the meeting was authority control and its practices.
Calhoun suggested at the meeting that the group consider what data
elements would provide sufficient and acceptable cataloging and three
issues emerged: The first, indexing, the group saw as the biggest gap in
thinking, between the extent of authority control research libraries are
willing to live with and what libraries such as Library of Congress
provide. Wiggins emphasized his view of authority control as an
essential element of cataloging that must be provided by a national
bibliographic agency such as the Library of Congress. Others considered
consistency of headings in the catalog is important, but did not
consider separate authority records a general requirement for necessary
and sufficient cataloging. Another element that most considered
important in providing acceptable cataloging is the ability to browse.
Lee Leighton (University of California at Berkeley) said many rely on
key words in browsing, making controlled access points less important in
today's method of searching. The third element that all agreed is
important in providing sufficient and acceptable cataloging is
retrieval. Robert Wolven (Columbia University) said that most utilize
Google as the entry point for searching, thereby requiring more metadata
elements to identify items and their locations. Wolven stated that since
the number of authors who have only one publication in the catalog is 60
percent or more, much of the effort of creating conventional authority
records is wasted.

Also discussed at the meeting was not only the need to define the
Library of Congress as a national bibliographic manager, but also as a
change manager, assuming LC will be a leader in the digital era. The
group discussed development of a task force, which would craft a
communications plan to keep stakeholders informed of the task force's
activities. The final portion of the meeting was spent discussing how
and when the task force would be formed and who would participate.
Possible participants should include research libraries, vendors, the
publishing community, representatives from search engines, the public
utilities and members of ARL and ALCTS.

As tangible next steps, the group identified a mechanism for continuing
to reach out to possible participants to tackle problems discussed at
this meeting. A decision was made to form a task force to tackle issues
that came out of the minutes of the meeting and have four groups that
would focus on four areas that need attention. The first group will
identify the core element set for vendor cataloging that could be
incorporated into libraries' workstreams and what the ideal workflow
would look like. The second subgroup will give attention to re-purposing
records from national libraries as part of an outreach mechanism. The
third subgroup will draft a short, three-page, succinct white paper
including advocacy for catalog end users, and will present the key
issues of the communications plan. Finally, subgroup four will look into
what are the pricing/distribution models that work well for all
participants. Tied into this will be authority control needed for this
model. Wiggins said he wants to make sure that there is no duplication
between what the Taiga group does and what this task force does. All of
the individual working groups will share their reports to the larger Big
Heads group.

Cindy Shelton (UCLA) asked Wiggins if he wanted to keep the task force
within Big Heads. Wiggins replied that he wanted to use Big Heads as the
sounding board to keep the discussion of the task force on focus. Sally
Rogers said Ohio University's Link Consortium has done some work on
defining core elements for vendor records. Karen Smith-Yoshimura
(OCLC/RLG) commented from the audience that she had received a number of
concerns from ARLIS and the art community about Casalini Libri vendor
records. She asked that those communities be represented on the task
force. Jim Mouw (University of Chicago) said one of the important issues
is that more libraries need to get involved in this effort. He urged
representatives from libraries that do not have vendors they work with
to join the task force. Mechael Charbonneau (Indiana University) said
her institution is using Casalini Libri records and has set up a project
with Springer where they are getting chapter information. Lee Leighton
(University of California at Berkeley) asked that law librarians get
involved with purchasing records and developing data elements for them.

Nancy Gibbs (Duke University) asked how an institution goes about
getting in contact with the vendor to address backlogs at individual
libraries. She hopes that Big Heads goes beyond the Western European
languages in using vendor records. Catherine Tierney (Stanford
University) said that many institutions with backlogs are approaching
the vendors themselves and the vendors are interested because Big Heads
libraries have approached them. Karen Calhoun (Cornell University)
suggested that when libraries approach vendors, they keep the big
picture of the library community in mind, as well as their own
individual library's purposes.

Robert Wolven (Columbia University) said there is a need to move quickly
and not overburden the process, and to be mindful of the possibilities
raised, but not to try to solve it all in the short term. The real
issues are not what elements are needed in the records, but how much is
the cost, how are the elements used and what is a practical solution for
a fairly large group of libraries. If the record is too minimal, there
will not be buy in and if too long, it may be too expensive for all to
afford. An audience member commented that another aspect of the
discussion is what OCLC does with these records that are placed in their
online system and whether they are overlaid by higher level records.
Chris Cole (National Agricultural Library) said in looking at pricing
and sustainability elements, there is a question as to whether the
utilities' model is viable.

**8.** **Report from the Membership Task Force TF Leader: Lisa German
(20 minutes).**

**2006 is the TS Big Heads membership evaluation year. Discuss and act
on the report from the Membership Task Force appointed at the San
Antonio meeting.**

Lisa German (Pennsylvania State University) reminded Big Heads that the
group must review its membership to bring about the following results:
reasonable continuity, a selection process that is fair and a membership
that is not too overburdened. At the ALA Midwinter Conference 2006, the
Big Heads committee was charged to review membership criteria in light
of Stanford's withdrawal from ARL, the lack of participation among
Canadian libraries and to bring a recommendation to the discussion group
at the annual ALA meeting in June, 2006. Beth Picknally Camden
(University of Pennsylvania), Robin Fradenburgh (University of Texas at
Austin), Lee Leighton (University of California at Berkeley) and German,
members of the committee reviewing membership, consulted the charges of
the ACRL-University Libraries Section Public Services Directors of Large
Research Libraries Discussion Group's membership, along with the ALCTS'
Chief Collection Development Officers Discussion Group, to formulate
answers on Big Heads' membership.

Recommendations of the committee were that membership should stay with
the top twenty-four ranked ARL libraries, to continue to use the ARL
membership criteria index averaged over three years and to recalculate
membership every three years. The committee recommended to define
standing members as follows: 1) National Libraries, including Library of
Congress, the National Agricultural Library and the National Library of
Medicine; 2) Public Libraries, which are members of ARL and whose ARL
statistical data places them within the range of the top 24 ranked
university libraries; and 3) other standing members who may be
determined by the group.

Other recommendations were to move Stanford from regular membership to
the list of standing membership and to invite Boston Public Library to
become a standing member. Boston Public Library has previously asked
about membership in Big Heads, is a member of ARL and is of a size
similar to other Big Heads members. The committee finally recommended to
continue to invite Canadian libraries when they are ranked in the top 24
ARL libraries, and to maintain their membership to the Big Heads
listserv. Big Heads members also suggested developing a roster of
members that would be posted on the Big Heads and ALA websites, to use
as a contact list for the future. Karen Calhoun (Cornell University)
thanked the committee for its good work.

**9. Wrap-up and discussion of future topics (10 minutes)**

Mindful of the time, Calhoun asked to hold this topic for future
discussion, and for Big Heads members to post their agenda items on the
listserv.