Heidi Lerner
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:27:12 -0700
FYI - see below! ----- Original Message ----- From: Rebecca Mugridge To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 11:33 AM Subject: [PCCLIST] PCC Series Policy The Steering Committee thanks the members of the PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force for the significant amount of time and energy it devoted to Recommendations of the PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force < http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/PCC-series-April-2008.pdf>. The PCC Steering Committee endorses three of the group's proposals that 1) facilitate automated creation of series authority records, 2) simplify PCC guidelines for series authority record creation, and 3) make the 440 field obsolete in the MARC format. It is a significant accomplishment that the Series Task Force wrote the MARBI papers and proposals necessary to make field 440 obsolete and to provide the 8XX sub-field coding necessary to meet several of the original goals of the CONSER standard record. MARBI approved the proposals in June 2008. The changes in these proposals represent true and timely simplifications for libraries doing series related work and staff training. The Task Force's recommendation under the section: "Options for PCC policy on tracing series" essentially does not change PCC's existing options for series work. The Steering Committee does not accept this recommendation for several reasons. It does not advance the long term goal of increasing and diversifying membership. The recommendation conflicts with several current PCC strategic directions aimed at broadening PCC membership, nationally and internationally. The Task Force's recommendation continues to prevent monograph records created by the Library of Congress from being coded as PCC records, severely limiting the number and diversity of records made available through the PCC. This recommendation also conflicts with the findings of the final report of the Joint Task Group on International Participation < http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/archive/tgip_finalrpt.pdf> which specifically identified current PCC series policies as impediments to international participation in the NACO and BIBCO programs. The Steering Committee notes the lack of consensus within the Series Review Task Force on this recommendation and the low response rate to the group's discussion paper where the scenarios for series options were described. Only 19 responses were received, less than 5% of all PCC member institutions. The committee will not base its decision about options for PCC series work on such a small sampling of PCC institutions. Finally, the recommendation suggests a completely optional category of series authority work for CONSER contributions but not for BIBCO. This does not result in a unified PCC policy as called for in the group's charge. The PCC Steering Committee has therefore decided on the following series policy for all levels of PCC bibliographic records, effective immediately: Transcription of the series statement is mandatory if applicable. Searching for series authority records, tracing the series, and the creation and maintenance of series authority records are optional. Next steps to update the appropriate BIBCO and CONSER documentation, as well as training materials, will begin now and continue through the next few months. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact me or anyone else on the PCC Steering Committee. Thank you, Rebecca (Chair, PCC Policy Committee) ******************* Rebecca L. Mugridge Head, Cataloging and Metadata Services Penn State University Libraries 126 Paterno Library University Park PA 16802 phone: 814-865-1850 fax: 814-863-7293 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************