NASIG: 2nd Call for Conference Proposals

The NASIG Program Planning Committee has put out a 2nd call for proposals for the 2009 conference.

Second Call for Proposals
NASIG 24th Annual Conference
Riding the Rapids Through a Mountain of Change
June 4-7, 2009
Asheville, North Carolina

The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) 2009 Program Planning Committee (PPC) extends a second call for proposals and/or program ideas for pre-conference, vision, strategy, and tactics sessions. We welcome all proposals related to serials and electronic resources, and we are particularly interested in the following topics in order to provide a diverse conference program:

• Standards, their application, and the impact on content providers and libraries
• Licensing issues, including negotiation of terms, workflows, and integration with publisher, vendor, and library systems
• Changes in the cataloging environment, including RDA and other policy or standard decisions and the effects of changes in the discovery of library resources
• Serials-related issues in scholarly communication, access and preservation of intellectual content, such as library-managed journal publication and data curation
• Continuing development of ERM, including evaluations of effectiveness, workflow changes, and other aspects not previously examined at NASIG conferences
• Programs reporting the findings of descriptive or experimental research on serials-related topics

The Program Planning Committee will review all submitted proposals for their content, timeliness, and reserves the right to combine, blend, or refocus proposals to maximize their relevance and to avoid duplication.

This Call for Proposals will close on October 31, 2008.

Presentations must be original and not previously presented at other conferences. The Programming Planning Committee hopes to notify applicants of the status of their proposals in December 2008. Inquiries may be sent to the PPC co-chairs, Erika Ripley and Morag Boyd at: prog-plan@nasig.org.

For additional details and to suggest a proposal or idea, please go to
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=gLDuSAnEoUWee0bttCXLgA_3d_3d

ALCTS Continuing Resources Section Update Forum

Jennifer Young's report from the ALCTS Continuing Resources Section Update Forum held on June 30, 2008, has been posted to NASIG's Newsletter Blog. Topics covered include:

• Revision of SCCTP courses
• Library of Congress's reorganization of their Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate's serials work
• ISSN-L update
• RDA update
• Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control update
• FRBR for Serials
  

CONSER At-Large Meeting, ALA 2008

The summary of the CONSER At-Large Meeting held at ALA Annual is now available on the CONSER Web site. Topics covered include:

• the proposal to make the 440 field obsolete
  
• the proposal to add new subfields to the 8XX fields (including one for ISSN)
  
• the use of the 007 field in the single record cataloging approach
  
• updates to the CONSER Standard Record (CSR) guidelines
  
• a new proposal to define the 588 field for "description based on" and "latest issue consulted" notes
  
• the repeatable 260 field

CONSER Updates

"CONSER Updates: The Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program at Ten Years and Revision of Integrating Resources: A Cataloging Manual" is now available as an article in press for the Serials Review. In this article, Hien Nguyen provides a history of the SCCTP and Lew Hawkins discusses the revision process for Integrating Resources: A Cataloging Manual.

"A Ghost in the Catalog: The Gradual Obsolescence of the Main Entry" by David Conners

Conners asks if the main entry concept is still relevant for online library catalogs in this article. After supplying some historical background, he considers the arguments for retaining the main entry and for abandoning it. Conners sees RDA's terminology change to primary and secondary access points (rather than main and added entries) to be strictly cosmetic. He argues that in the age of online catalogs, the main entry is no longer needed to collocate works by a particular author and requires an unnecessary decision point for catalogers at a time when there is a push to make cataloging more cost-effective. The article is accompanied by an annotated bibliography. Even though is it published in the Serials Librarian, this article may be of interest to all catalogers, not just those focused on serials.

Published in the Serials Librarian, vol. 55, no. 1/2 (2008), pages 85-97.

"From the Majors to the Minors: Playing the Game as the Rules are Changed" by Jim Cole

In this article, Cole gives an overview of the evolution of Anglo-American cataloging rules and how the rule changes would affect publishers and aggregators if they were to use them to organize electronic journals. He concludes that since cataloging code is continually changing regarding title changes, it does not make the best model for publishers and aggregators to follow. He suggests instead, "when a serial changes its title, if the change involves an important word in the title or if the new title could potentially be separated from the old title in a comprehensive A-Z listing of serials from multiple publishers and aggregators, the new and old titles should each be listed separately. References would be needed between the two titles, and these could be given on each title's own Web page. He then asserts that full cataloging of online journals should not be needed--brief records with a title and url should be sufficient. However he does not discuss the ramifications of the loss of several access points by doing so.

Published in: the Serials Librarian, vol. 55, no. 1/2 (2008), pages 45-58.

Successive Entry, Latest Entry, or None of the Above?

"Successive Entry, Latest Entry, or None of the Above? How the MARC21 Format, FRBR and the Concept of a Work Could Revitalize Serials Management" was presented by Katherine Adams and Britta Santamauro at the 2007 NASIG Annual Conference. Their session was recorded by Kurt Blythe for publication in the Serials Librarian.

In their NASIG presentation, Katherine Adams and Britta Santamauro introduced their ideas for applying FRBR concepts to both bibliographic records and online catalog functionality. Their ideas are built on the concept of a “superworkspression." They propose an umbrella record that would describe the work and expression levels of a publication. This umbrella record would not undergo title changes unless there is a change in content. The hierarchical structure they present would also have records for each manifestation where only the unique data for each manifestation would be recorded—there would be no duplication of data from the superworkspression record. Finally an item record would contain local holdings information. Their attempt to apply FRBR concepts to real world applications is described as a work in progress and it would be interesting to see their ideas fleshed out more fully in future presentations or publications.

Published in: Serials Librarian, vol. 54, no. 3/4 (2008), pages 193-197.