ALA MIDWINTER CONFERENCE REPORT
Atlanta, GA, January 20-24, 2017
Reports from:
OLAC Cataloging Policy Committee (CAPC)
RDA Forum & RDA Tech Forum
ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA)
ALCTS/LITA Authority Control Interest Group (ACIG)
Reported by: Mary Huismann (St. Olaf College), Chair, Content Standards Subcommittee
OLAC Cataloging Policy Committee (CAPC)
The meeting began with introductions, adoption of the agenda, and an announcement of personnel changes for the committee.
The next portion of the meeting was devoted to liaison and task force reports (only selected highlights are given here—see the full CAPC meeting minutes normally published in the March OLAC Newsletter):
The CC:DA liaison report included the news that the OLAC-sponsored proposal to add vocabulary to Regional Encoding (RDA 3.19.6) was successful. However, vocabulary terms for Encoding Format (RDA 3.19.3) was removed. Changes are coming to RDA and the Toolkit with the redesign project.
The MAC liaison report outlined the various papers to be discussed at Midwinter. A discussion paper on accessibility (DP 2017-03) aligns with the work of the current CAPC accessibility task force.
The LC report contained information on staffing changes at LC, a new illustrated history of the card catalog to be issued for National Library Week, merging of the PSD and COIN divisions, new LCSH training modules mounted to the CLW site, and a statement regarding the “Illegal aliens” heading. The art genre/form project is underway in collaboration with the Art Libraries Society of North America. The demographic terms (LCDGT) project phase 3 has been extended and needs broader participation. LC has not implemented these terms because there hasn’t been time to prepare training yet.
The report from OCLC highlighted the replacement for the Iliad product.
The Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) report noted that their discussion list (MOUG-L) has been migrated; see their website for instructions on subscribing to the list. The joint Music Library Association (MLA)/MOUG discovery task force issued its report. MOUG will be meeting on February 21-22, 2017 in Orlando and are co-sponsoring the MLA pre-conference “The Beat Goes On-a-thon: Creating Linked Data for Music with RIMMF.”
The joint MLA/OLAC Playaways RDA best practices guide is on track for a release of a draft in June.
The Realia task force has been renamed to the Objects Task Force. The group hopes to have a draft of their guide “Best Practices for Cataloging Objects with RDA and MARC21” available for comment in June 2017 with a final version available in 2018.
The final portion of the meeting was devoted to discussion of other needed or ongoing work involving review and maintenance of the RDA best practice guides, and how to proceed towards a goal of getting the best practices incorporated into the RDA Toolkit.
RDA Forum & RDA Tech Forum
The RDA Forum included presentations by Kathy Glennan (ALA representative to the RDA Steering Committee (RSC)) and James Hennelly (Director, RDA Toolkit). Conversation on the technical side of the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign (3R) Project continued in the RDA Tech Forum, held on Monday, January 23.
Kathy Glennan’s presentation focused on three main points: the agreement to adopt the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), implications of and continuing work on the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign (3R) Project, and community/working group proposals and discussion papers.
The IFLA Library Reference Model was formerly known as FRBR-LRM. The document is in the final draft stage, awaiting approval by IFLA (anticipated in 2017). LRM consolidates and updates the three Functional Requirements models FRBR, FRSAD, FRSAD. The new model is a high level conceptual model that uses entity-relationship modeling framework and is focused on user tasks rather than library operations. LRM is based on and compatible with the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model used in museum and cultural heritage institutions and with object-oriented FRBR (FRBRoo).
Eleven entities have been defined in the model; these entities were determined to be the key objects
of interest to users. A new superclass of all the other entities, Res, in the model is introduced; Res can be any entity in the universe of discourse. WEMI (works, expressions, manifestations, items) are retained from FRBR, though with some definition tweaks. A new superclass Agent is introduced that encompasses the current RDA terms “person, family, or corporate body.” A new entity Collective Agent is also introduced for a gathering or organization of persons bearing a particular name and capable of acting as a unit. The entity
Person is redefined to be a human being, a significant change from FRAD. The entity Nomen is created to describe an association between an entity and a designation that refers to it. Place, which can be contemporary or historical, on Earth or extra-terrestrial, has been added. Finally, Time-span is introduced, denoting a period of time with a measurable duration.
LRM includes thirty-seven attributes, though none are required. These attributes are considered representative and not exhaustive. Two new attributes include Representative expression and Manifestation statement. The Representative expression is deemed essential in characterizing the Work; values are taken from a representative or canonical Expression of the Work (though the particular expression serving as source for the values does not need to be identified). The Manifestation statement is a statement normally transcribed from the manifestation and helps users understand how the resource represents itself (e.g., publication statement, statement of responsibility).
Implementing LRM will require changes to RDA. RDA will be an instantiation of LRM. The RSC decided
not to explicitly implement Res —everything in RDA will be a refinement of Res and its attributes, relationships, etc. New content to cover the new entities and instructions for aggregates will need to be added. Person will need to be redefined and fictitious entities associated with manifestations will
need to be accommodated in a new or different way.
The 3R project, along with implementing LRM, allows the RSC to address several long-standing problems: completely removing “placeholder” instructions for deleted instructions, implementing the 4-fold path (four ways to capture data) throughout RDA, clarifying the “transcribe” vs. “record” instructions, and further developing guidelines for recording pagination and foliation. The RSC will also be able to rethink presentation of the instructions—generalizing where possible, restructuring chapter layout, developing a new approach to relationship designations, and building a concordance of current RDA instruction numbers that will map to their new locations. The end-result will not be “RDA 2.0” but rather a new Expression of RDA.
To accomplish this project, RDA content will be frozen and no updates to the Toolkit text will be made between April 2017 and April 2018. A stable text is necessary for development to take place as well as getting all translations current with the English base text. Therefore, no proposals or fast track changes will be considered in 2017 (though problems and possible solutions can be documented for submission in 2018). There will be some opportunities for community participation and feedback, most likely through the RSC working groups and other experts. This feedback loop will differ from present in that it will be initiated by the RSC and not the RDA users.
At the last RSC meeting in Frankfurt in November, twenty-three proposals and discussion papers (along with responses to them from various communities) were considered. Among these papers were a joint ALA/CCC discussion paper, marking the first collaborative effort. All or part of fifteen proposals were approved with the rest referred to the 3R Project. Topics of the discussion papers included the treatment of aggregates and accompanying material in RDA. Of interest to the music community, the ALA proposal to add controlled vocabulary for regional encoding for video and videogames was approved. The RSC Music Working Group proposals were approved (with some revisions). These proposals covered Additions and revisions to RDA 7.11 Place and Date of Capture, Additions and revisions to RDA 2.15.3 Plate Number for Music, Replacement of RDA 6.15 Medium of Performance, and Revision of RDA 6.28.1.9 and 6.28.1.10 Additions to Access Points Representing Musical Works.
James Hennelly’s presentation and subsequent tech forum addressed the technical side of the 3R Project. The desired outcomes of the 3R Project are to better meet the needs of the user, play a more productive role in their work, and to add greater flexibility and utility to the Toolkit’s display of instructions and RDA-related documents. Project partners include the RSC, RDA developers (Dakota Systems, GVPi, and Metadata Management Associates), and the 3R User Group (six members representing a variety of library types). Project tasks include synchronizing the Toolkit with the glossary (which is generated from the RDA registry), updating the rdatoolkit.org website, and implementing new translation software.
The redesigned Toolkit will include responsive design with an emphasis on tablets, and accessibility (aiming for AA rating by the W3C standard). As part of the transformation, data will be converted to DITA format which will introduce modularity and flexibility to RDA content and allow for the creation of unique “views” of the RDA content. Three views of RDA content are envisioned: a workflow view, an element view, and a policy statement view (which would allow a view of the RDA instructions combined with a view of user-selected policy statements such as the MLA Best Practices and/or LC-PCC Policy Statements, etc.). The project will also provide improved user-created content tools, improved log-in and time-out functions, and improvements to the admin system.
Some things will be lost in the redesign, however. The individual icons for policy statements/best practices will go away as will the print table of contents and index. In addition, all search metadata except the numerical label (i.e., instruction number) and “Core” designation will be removed (currently in the advanced search).
There are several decisions yet to be made in the 3R project. Instruction display and navigation are still under discussion. For example, RDA content is currently arranged in chapters. The redesign will break the chapters into smaller segments, possibly at the element level. Breaking the content into smaller chunks will facilitate recombination of content for the various “views.” A new system of numbering the instructions, possibly alpha-numeric, is under consideration. (Hennelly noted that any numbering system will not be sequential to avoid some of the current numbering problems.) Display of a browse structure in envisioned rather than a static table of contents is envisioned. Solutions to archiving revision history, mapping, element displays, and large tables and lists (e.g., the list of relationship designators in the appendices, mappings, etc.) are still being sought.
The user group will be engaged in beta training through the site building process. It is hoped that a beta version of the new Toolkit be released a month prior to rollout of the product. Training webinars will be produced along the lines of the initial RDA Toolkit training webinars. An archived version of the April 2017 Toolkit will likely be retained for a period of time after the 2018 release, but cannot be maintained forever since the underlying architecture is completely different. Hennelly is interested in hearing user stories and use cases regarding revision history, archived instructions, and general user experience (user stories and use cases may be submitted to rdatoolkit.org).
Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA)
The CC:DA blog contains the full agenda and links to various documents and reports.
After introductions, the adoption of the agenda, and approval of the minutes of the meeting held at ALA Annual, chair Tina Shrader delivered the report of CC:DA motions and other actions July-December 2016. Motions to authorize ALA responses to 28 RDA revision proposals and discussion papers from other constituencies and for the ALA representative to the RSC to revise two ALA proposals were approved.
Library of Congress Report (Dave Reser)
Reser reported on the appointment of Dr. Carla D. Hayden as the 14th Librarian of Congress and other LC staffing and personnel changes, the merger of the Policy Standards Division (PSD) and Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN), enhancements to Cataloger’s Desktop, changes to the LC-PCC Policy Statements, a new open-access version of the MARC distribution service called MDSConnect, and updates related to the Bibliographic Framework Initiative.
Report of the ALA Representative to the RDA Steering Committee (Kathy Glennan)
Glennan reported on personnel changes to the RDA Steering Committee (RSC) and governance developments. Linda Barnhart (UC San Diego, retired) was appointed the RSC Secretary Elect and will succeed RSC Secretary Judy Kuhagen at the end of April 2017. Daniel Paradis (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec) joined the RSC as the Translations Team Liaison Officer. RSC membership for Europe has transitioned to a single representative. Work to form the Oceania RDA Community (ORDAC) is underway.
Efforts to create a North American RDA Community (NARDAC) will resume in 2017. A basic structural outline, membership, working principles, etc. need to be developed and agreed upon during 2017. Since a structure must be in place by 2019, a near-final structure is needed no later than mid-2018. This will allow for testing and adjusting the structure before the full NARDAC implementation. NARDAC will need to meet the criteria set by the RSC Board, namely to represent the countries/organizations in the region who have implemented RDA and to serve as a conduit between the regional RDA users and the RSC regarding RDA development. The current assumptions are that each organization (ALA, CCC, LC) will have their own representatives, need to accommodate split recommendations (unanimity not required), and develop working principles. Several issues are under discussion, including representation and membership (possibly having more than one representative each from ALA, CCC, LC) and how closely the North American structure should resemble others (e.g., Europe, ORDAC). There may be NARDAC-related opportunities for CC:DA as part of the 3R Project plus a day-long RSC sponsored outreach event to discuss NARDAC, IFLA LRM, 3R Project, etc. to be held in Chicago on May 16, 2017.
For more information about RDA Board Governance plans, see http://www.rda-rsc.org/node/437.
Revisions to RDA to support the development of RDA Reference and the RDA Toolkit Glossary began during the summer. Changes to the RDA Elements, vocabulary encoding schemes, and instructions will allow for better interaction between RDA Reference and the RDA Toolkit Glossary. This will allow the Glossary to be automatically generated from the RDA Reference data stored and maintained in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR). See RSC/Chair/17 and RSC/Sec/3 for more information. A summary of the changes are captured in
RSC/Sec/4. Of interest to the music community are the deprecation of vocabulary for Encoding Format (3.19.3) and changes to Illustrative Content (7.15).
Fast Track changes to the Toolkit were made with the August and October releases. The August release contained 29 Fast Track changes, including ALA’s new (8) and revised (1) relationship designators for persons associated with music/AV works and expressions. See RSC/Sec/3 for more information on the August release. The October release contained 21 Fast Track changes plus modifications to how definition and scope paragraphs are presented throughout RDA. Reciprocal relationships were added to Appendix I (Relationship Designators: Relationships Between a Resource and Persons, Families, and Corporate Bodies Associated with the Resource). See RSC/Sec/5 for more information on the October release.
Glennan ended her report with a summary of RSC meeting, held at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, November 7-11, 2016. The meeting agenda and documents under discussion are available at the RSC website. The RSC will continue to issue announcements summarizing various aspects of the meeting, with the official minutes available in due course.
The major focus of the meeting was on the adoption of IFLA Library Reference Model (formerly known as the FRBR Library Reference Model), implications of and continuing work on the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign (3R) Project, and Community/Working Group proposals and discussion papers.
The RSC agreed to implement the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM) by April 2018. RDA will be one of the primary instantiations of the model. The draft is considered stable enough for work to proceed; the RSC Aggregates Working Group will now be able to develop guidelines for aggregates in the coming year. The major change for current RDA entities is the removal of fictitious characters and non-human entities from the scope of Person; these will be accommodated as names within the context of the Nomen entity.
The RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign (3R) Project is a major undertaking that will require freezing of the content of the RDA Toolkit between April 2017 and April 2018. As a result, no proposals, discussion papers, fast track changes, etc. will be considered by the RSC in 2017. For more information about the 3R project, see the announcements http://www.rdatoolkit.org/blog/3RProject and http://rda-rsc.org/3Rprojectupdate and the report of the RDA Forum & RDA Tech Forum (above). Anticipated changes include a conversion of the underlying data to the DITA standard, implementing new LRM entities, generalizing instructions where possible, creating instructions, etc. for aggregates, developing a new approach to relationship designators (and possibly incorporating new terms), restructuring the layout of the instructions, building a concordance of current instruction numbers which will map to their new locations, and more end-user customization. The “4-fold path” concept will be introduced throughout RDA, using unstructured description, structured description (including authorized access points), identifiers, and URIs; this will help to address the ongoing challenges associated with transcribing vs. recording data.
The April 2018 Toolkit Update will not be branded as “RDA 2.0”—rather it should be considered a new expression of RDA. Although no changes can be made in 2017, CC:DA can continue to identify gaps in RDA, problems that need to be fixed, etc. All issues that arise should be documented with a brief statement of the problem and an outline of the proposed solution; these will be collected by the ALA Representative to be used by RSC when planning for revisions in 2018. It is anticipated that future development of RDA will come from the RSC (working with its Working Groups and other groups of RDA experts such as CC:DA) and shared with communities for comments and information gathering.
The RSC discussed 23 proposals and discussion papers plus responses from communities and other groups. The following list includes proposals and discussion papers of interest to the music community: RSC/ALA/1: Adding controlled vocabulary to RDA 3.19.6, Regional Encoding, and to the Glossary Outcome: Accepted RSC/ALA/1/rev.
RSC/Europe/1: Proposal on Sources of Information (RDA 2.2.2) Outcome: Will be folded into a provenance work package in the 3R Project. Of note: The RSC agreed to modify the definition of “container” to include information that is visible through the closed container, working from ALA’s suggested wording.
RSC/MusicWG/ 1 : Additions and revisions to RDA 7.11, Place and Date of Capture Outcome: Accepted RSC/MusicWG/1/rev with revisions.
RSC/MusicWG/ 2: Additions and revisions to RDA 2.15.3, Plate Number for Music Outcome:
Accepted option 1 in RSC/MusicWG/2/rev, which rewords 2.15.3.3.
RSC/MusicWG/ 3 : Replacement of RDA 6.15 Medium of Performance Outcome: Accepted RSC/MusicWG/3/rev with revisions.
RSC/MusicWG/ 4 : Revision of RDA 6.28.1.9 and 6.28.1.10, Additions to Access Points
Representing Musical Works Outcome: Accepted RSC/MusicWG/4/rev with revisions.
Upcoming CC:DA work (Tina Shrader)
During the year that the content of RDA is frozen, CC:DA will continue to identify issues to bring forward to the RSC. CC:DA will also seek ideas how CC:DA will relate to NARDAC. Other planned tasks include updating the CC:DA website links, document indexes, etc.
Report from the PCC Liaison (Lori Robare)
Robare presented highlights from her full report. PCC is gearing up for the next strategic planning cycle. At the Policy Committee (PoCo) meeting, a membership in ISNE was approved. A linked data advisory committee has been formed as has a task force on URIs. Recommendations from the coding gender in RDA task force were approved; DCM Z1 will be revised soon and a webinar is planned. Reports from the standing committees were given.
Presentation on IFLA-LRM (Kathy Glennan)
FRBR-LRM is now known as “IFLA Library Reference Model” (LRM). The worldwide review of LRM is complete; some changes were made based on review comments. The final version consists of three documents: LRM, Transition mapping overview, and Explanations of recurring issues. LRM is awaiting final approval by the IFLA Committee on Standards, expected sometime in 2017. No additional changes in content are anticipated. RDA will be an instantiation of LRM.
In the model, relationships are given greater emphasis. Relationships are declared at the highest
superclass possible. LRM contains only the most essential attributes—RDA, however, can define and
add more attributes as needed. Any attribute defined for the superclass is automatically applied to
the subclass, so for example, an attribute declared for Agent also applies to Collective agent and Person.
LRM introduces Res (LRM-E1), a super-entity of any entity. Its attributes apply to all entities in the
model. There is no need to model Res specifically in RDA as it is inherent. RDA will refine Res by creating element sub-types and relationship designators.
Brief explanations of several entities were given. Place (LRM E-10) includes extraterrestrial places and contemporary and historic places but excludes imaginary and fictional places. Time-span (LRM E-11) can be precise or general but can’t be fictitious. Nomen (LRM E-9) is an appellation used to refer to an entity. It is important to note that there is a distinction between the entity itself and its Nomen string. Identical Nomen
strings can refer to different entities (e.g., Corpus Christi—a musical group, place in Texas, or name of a monastery), and a single entity can have multiple Nomen strings (e.g., Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 0000 0001 2132 4854 [ISNI] all refer to the same person). Collective agent (LRM-E8) must have a name and be capable of acting like a unit, so it cannot be just a group of people like Southerners. RDA can still retain Family and Corporate Body as sub-classes. Person (LRM-E7) is restricted to real persons who have lived or are assumed to have lived. Thus, fictitious entities are not instances of Person, but are instances of Res.
Though LRM retains WEMI, there are some differences. Work (LRM-E2) includes a new attribute Representative expression. This attribute includes any attribute deemed essential in characterizing the Work, such as language. Values are taken from a representative or canonical Expression of the Work, the source of which does not need to be identified. Some attributes have moved from Work to Expression (LRM E-3): medium of performance, key, and intended audience. Manifestation (LRM-E4) includes a new Manifestation statement attribute, which is a statement normally transcribed from a manifestation (e.g., statement of responsibility).
So what will be the impact of LRM on RDA? LRM will have an impact on authorized access points (AAPs) in RDA. For Works, the emphasis is on identifying the responsible agent and the preferred titles. The removal of sequencing instructions will allow RDA communities to provide different approaches. This may prove helpful in dealing with performed music. Generalized guidance, methods, and examples of different approaches will help catalogers make AAP decisions. With LRM finalized, RDA can incorporate specific guidelines for aggregates, but there are many questions yet to be resolved. Future changes to RDA will be driven by the international adoption of RDA, linked data, implementation of the four-fold path, refocusing the order of and generalizing instructions, and making the Toolkit more user-friendly.
Report from the MAC Representative (John Myers)
Myers reported that MAC had seven proposals and five discussion papers to consider. All proposals passed. Four of the five discussion papers will likely return as proposals. See the report of MLA’s liaison to MAC (Jim Soe Nyun) for more details on the proposal and discussion papers.
Report from ALA Publishing Services and presentation on RDA Toolkit changes (Jamie Hennelly)
Hennelly reported on RDA Toolkit subscriptions, international adoptions, and revenue targets. There will be an update to the Toolkit in April 2017, and two releases (February and August). The August release will have no changes to the English RDA text and is intended only for translations work. There will be no new print volume of RDA until 2018. A new edition of RDA Essentials will also be issued in 2018.
Hennelly’s presentation on the Toolkit changes largely mirrored the presentation given in the RDA Forum (see report above). The 3R project aims to better meet user needs, and to provide greater flexibility and utility of the product. The redesign will also feature responsive design and accessibility updates. Conversion of the data to the DITA format will allow for different “views” of RDA, such as an Element view, Workflow view, or Policy Statement view (which would include the MLA Best Practices). Improvements will be made to various admin functions, log-in, time-out, and user created content tools. Lost in the redesign will be the individual icons (such as the MLA or LC-PCC PS buttons), print table of contents, print index, and some search metadata in the advanced search. Maintenance of the “old” RDA is problematic because of the change in the underlying architecture. The old site will be maintained for a defined period of time after April 2018. Hennelly is eager to receive feedback and user stories relating not only to RDA but also to the revision history aspect.
The meeting closed with the announcement of dates for the next CC:DA meeting at ALA Annual in Chicago (June 24 and 26, 2017).
Authority Control Interest Group (ACIG)
ACIG featured two presentations followed by updates from OCLC and LC.
The first presentation, “’Authority Control’ see (also) ‘Identity Management,’” was given by John J. Riemer (Head, UCLA Library Cataloging & Metadata Center) and Violeta Ilik (Head, Digital Systems & Collection Services, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University). The PCC Task Group on Identity Management in NACO was charged to examine issues surrounding identity management and authority control. Authority control manages access to entities by authorizing a specific form of name or other term for access use. Identity management, on the other hand, operates by associating a registered identifier with characterizing data which specify a single identity or identified entity.
Nine possible use cases, identifying stakeholders, scope, priority, and examples were presented. The use cases ranged from the very specific (e.g., a direct search for information about a name) to broad (e.g., genealogical research). The question remains whether authority control and identity management are the same or different—or, perhaps “two sides of the same coin” (Saskia. “Authority control and identity management” All Things Cataloged blog entry, January 26, 2011). Or is identity management a subset of authority control? A comparison shows their different approaches—for example, there is a reluctance to establish an author of a dissertation’s name in traditional authority control because it is assumed the name may change over time, whereas identity management seeks to get an identifier established right away at the beginning of the career. Compelling reasons for expanding the pool of authority data contributors are beginning to emerge from examinations of the issues surrounding identity management and authority control.
The second presentation, “Authority Control and the University of Nebraska—Lincoln’s Institutional Repository” was made by Margaret (Meg) Mering (Authority Control Librarian, University of Nebraska—Lincoln Libraries). Last July, Mering began a project to look at the names of current UNL faculty and emeriti faculty in the institutional repository as well as in Library’s catalog. Her overall goal for the project was to discover what authority control/identity control means or looks for an institutional repository.
The University of Nebraska—Lincoln’s (UNL) institutional repository was established in 2005, powered by Digital Commons, open access institutional repository software from bepress. There approximately 90,000 unique items, 271 communities, 899 series, and approximately 120,000 names—the majority of which are personal names. Most users access the repository from Google (57%—compared to only .52% via the UNL’s discovery tool!), which of course begs the question whether authority control is necessary if everyone is coming to the repository though Google. Limitations exist with the current tools available to the repository. It is difficult to search and edit names, no cross references, and birth or death dates cannot be used as qualifiers. The author index has issues as well—contributors to a publication are not present in this index, and separate entries are created each time an author has multiple e-mail addresses. Future plans include investigation of a University of Nebraska system-wide institutional repository, though many issues need to be worked through.
The OCLC update was delivered by Nathan Putnam, Director of Metadata Quality. Putnam is new to the position and oversees quality control in several products, including WorldCat. The first item for the update concerned controlling headings. Controlling headings is an important part of OCLC’s linked data strategy. Putnam described the differences between the Record Manager and Connexion environments. Record Manager has several more vocabularies available, whereas Connexion has only LC. He shared that Record Manager is available to all Connexion users upon filling out a form at the OCLC website. The second item covered in the update was a brief introduction to FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology). This was a joint LC/OCLC project to provide a simplified application scheme for LC subject headings. A web interface for FAST headings, assignFAST, uses auto-suggest technology in an attempt to automate term selection. FAST is also available as linked data. More information on FAST is available at FAST page of the OCLC website. The final item on the agenda was the announcement of UNICODE availability with Connexion version 2.63 or Record Management. However, authority records remain in MARC-8.
The LC update was given by Janis Young, and covered many of the same topics as reported at the OLAC CAPC meeting (see report above).