Sydney conference programme
The Cataloguing Commission hosted two sessions at the Sydney conference. The first session comprised presentations on RDA, DCMI and METS.
Deirdre Kiorgaard (National Library of Australia, also Chair, Joint Steering Committee for RDA (Resource Description and Access), formerly AACR3 gave a presentation entitled 'Hitting the right note: composing and arranging RDA'. In it she outlined its history and governance as well as current and future progress towards the target release date in 2009. At this stage the chapters with most specific relevance to music had not yet been released for comment. Further information on current consultations, and all aspects are available at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/rda.html .
Andrew Wilson (Government Information Management Branch of the National Archives of Australia) outlined the history and current status of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) for which he is a member of the Advisory Board. The original concept of a means for describing web resources using an initial 13 (later 15) elements has been subsequently expanded by addition of further sub-elements, the so-called 'Canberra qualifiers'. There are now more than fifty DC metadata terms, defined in a single namespace. Dublin Core's structure is flat with every element both optional and repeatable, following no prescribed order. Development of the DCMI Abstract Model in 2005 revealed certain inconsistencies that have subsequently been resolved. Future work includes the development of further application profilesenabling the combination of DC metadata properties with those from other metadata standards to suit particular communities. Further information on DCMI is available at http://dublincore.org/.
Scott Yeadon (Australian National University) gave an outline of METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard), an XML-based schema for packaging related sets of digital objects. Following a brief examination of MusicXML he described the major structures in METS: element and header, administrative metadata, descriptive metadata, file references, etc., with an illustrative example. METS is based on open standards and can be used to describe and provide access to digital objects and collections. In common with any other XML document, METS mark-up can be rendered in various ways according to context and purpose.
The second session comprised two papers and an open discussion. The first paper given by Sébastien Gaudelus of the Bibliothèque national de France concerned the retrospective conversion of various catalogues prior to their addition to BN-Opale Plus. These comprised ca. 20,000 records for sheet music covering the period 1946-66, the Lesure early printed music catalogue (ca. 15,500 records), the catalogue of handwritten letters (ca. 35,500 records) and the catalogue of letters written to Nadia Boulanger. Work had just started on conversion of nearly 870,000 cards from the author and anonymous author catalogue which will result in about 600,000 records to be added to BN-Opale Plus. The work is scheduled to run until 2011.
Following this Massimo Gentili Tedeschi (Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Ufficio Ricerca Fondi Musicali, Milan) described the process and progress of revision (from 1997) of the 1975 RICA cataloguing rules for music in Italy. A working group for music began work in 2004. The resulting SBN2 integrated cataloguing system uses a new bibliographic format, SBN-MARC based on UNIMARC. The rules are based generally on FRBR principles. The music Working Group has reformulated uniform titles after an analysis of AACR2, AFNOR and RAK Musik. A pre-publication draft can be seen online at http://www.iccu.sbn.it/genera.jsp?id=344 .
The concluding open discussion, billed as 'System swap shop' was intended to act as a forum for exchange of information about functionality between users of both the same and of different library systems. Relatively low attendance and lecture room layout as well as shortage of time conspired to hamper discussion to some extent. A suggestion (made in absentia by Alison Hall) was well received: namely that IAML should formulate a standard set of requirements that can be put to system suppliers and system librarians detailing what systems should be able to do with regard to music information ... and also what they should not do! Gerry Ostrove (Library of Congress) suggested that a document produced by the late Lenore Coral would provide an excellent starting point.
There is also a fuller alternative set of notes produced by Alastair Boyd.
