Asian Materials Cataloguing Seminar at the Library of Congress

Asian Materials Cataloguing Seminar at the Library of Congress

Asian Materials Cataloguing Seminar at the Library of Congress

Summary provided by Angela Kinney, Head, Southeast/South Asia Team, Library of Congress

The Library of Congress held an Asian Materials Cataloguing Seminar on 30-31 March 1998, attended by 92 technical services librarians from the US and abroad. An additional 44 participants from the LC were also present. The purpose of the Seminar was to promote membership in the Program for Cooperative Cataloguing (PCC), an international cooperative effort aimed at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely, and cost effective cataloguing that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world. Another aim of the Seminar was to expand the contributions of high quality, core-level cataloguing records for materials in Asian languages or related to Asian studies.

Beacher Wiggins, Library of Congress' Director for Cataloguing; John Byrum, Chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloguing Division (RCCD) whose staff sponsored the Seminar, and Helen Poe, Chief of the Asian Division; made introductory remarks. Byrum noted that LC classification, Dewey classification, and AACR2 have given greater emphasis to areas outside North America and Western Europe. "Nevertheless", he added, "many problems remain for further attention. Today's Seminar will provide a unique opportunity to pursue discussion of at least a few of these problems."

Following the introductory remarks, the Seminar began with an orientation to the PCC by Ann Della Porta, Head of the Cooperative Cataloguing Team (RCCD). Della Porta described the benefits of participation in the PCC, including the opportunity for libraries to produce more dependable, timely and higher quality cataloguing by using shared standards. More cost effective cataloguing results by utilising copy. Libraries that participate in the PCC have a strong, coherent voice in the review and development of cataloguing standards. They also have access to expert training.

Seminar participants were also given an intensive training session in the Name Authority Programme (NACO) by Thomas Tsai and Carolyn Sturtevant, both cataloguers in RCCD. Sturtevant and Tsai discussed basics for creating and revising name authority records, with special emphasis on authority records associated with Asian materials. Sturtevant's training session centred on name authority headings for corporate bodies, while Tsai covered creation of authority work for personal names. The plenary session ended with a question and answer period during which general cataloguing and shelflisting questions were addressed by LC staff. Breakout meetings coordinated by LC staff followed; during these, participants from other institutions met with the LC participants to review questions that attendees had already submitted.

On the second day Lynn El-Hoshy, Senior Cataloguing Policy Specialist, Cataloguing Policy and Support Office (CPSO), offered training in subject analysis and classification. El-Hoshy instructed attendees in four key areas:

1. 1.

   performing subject analysis of library materials;

2. 2.

   assigning LC subject headings;

3. 3.

   understanding the basic structure and principles of LC's subject headings system; and

4. 4.

   becoming familiar with the basic documentation that supports LC subject headings and classification.

Kio Kando, Senior Cataloguer on the Japanese I Team, RCCD, presented a half-day course that gave a general introduction to subject cataloguing of Asian religions, with a focus on Buddhist materials. Kanda brought the seminar to a close with a discussion on the problematic nature of descriptive cataloguing of Buddhist sacred books.