[DCRM-L] FW: OCLC Form/Genre Revisions and Pending RBMS Thesaurus Work?

[dooleyj]

I'm responding on behalf of OCLC's Metadata Services group to Jeff Barton's
post of 20 May in which he wondered about potential ramification for RBMS
thesauri of "major revisions of form/genre headings" by OCLC.

It's LC that's making changes in headings, not OCLC, so any issues regarding
the possibility of authority records for RBMS's form/genre thesauri, or
encoding of bib records, should happen with LC (though Ryan Hildebrand has
already clarified that the changes aren't relevant for RBMS thesauri).
OCLC's role is in distributing the authority records and providing the
search interface.

I clarified the details with Linda Gabel in Metadata Services, who presented
the webinar that Jeff cites, and here's her response:

"The presentation was primarily designed to discuss genre/form access to the
wider OCLC audience, and to explain LC's issuance of the new LCGFT authority
records.  OCLC has tweaked the authority file searching, and the controlling
functionality.  We may also do a conversion of old forms to new in the
bibliographic records if possible, but that hasn't been scheduled.  It will
only affect the old LCSH to new LCGFT coding.  There will be no change for
anything coded as RBGENR or other thesaurus.

There is a Form/Genre Subcommittee of SAC/ALCTS, chaired by Adam Schiff,
University of Washington.  Ed O'Neill, Office of Research, is also on the
subcommittee, and can clarify the scope of the subcommittee.  I'm sure they
would love to have input from the RBMS community if it isn't already there."

RBMS certainly can be pleased with itself as one of the earliest proponents
of form/genre access, and, as Linda notes, the relevant ALCTS committee
would no doubt welcome RBMS input--if it's not already being provided.

Best wishes to all, Jackie

-- 
Jackie Dooley
Program Officer
OCLC Research

dooleyj at oclc.org
949.492.5060 (work/home) -- Pacific Time
949.295.1529 (mobile)


> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Jeff Barton <jpbarton at princeton.edu>
> Reply-To: DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
> Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 12:38:02 -0400
> To: DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
> Subject: [DCRM-L] OCLC Form/Genre Revisions and Pending RBMS Thesaurus
> Work?
> 
OCLC is planning what looks like major revisions of Form/Genre headings,
based on a webinar I sat in on recently (link to slides below).
http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/webinars/GenreHeadings.pdf

I'm wondering how will this mesh with the work now being done by RBMS
On our own Form/Genre thesaurus?

And based on their pending upload of reworked authority files (see
slide #18), I think there will be a disparity between these records and the
655 coding in our existing MARC records.  I'm also wondering how other
libraries are planning to deal with this?

> Jeff Barton
> Cotsen Children's Library Cataloger
> Rare Books & Special Collections Department
> Princeton University Library
> One Washington Rd.
> Princeton, NJ 08544
> jpbarton at princeton.edu
> 609-258-3166