Report on the meeting of the Joint Steering Committee, 3/16/09

The JSC had another busy meeting on Monday, and for the first time, we failed to complete discussion of all the priority comments (those for Chapter 3); we hope that we can come back to the unresolved priority comments later in the agenda.  We did cover chapters 4, 7, 5, and began discussing Chapter 6.

Chapter 3: Describing carriers

• The JSC agreed that number of frames of still images should be recorded as part of the extent statement (3.4.1.7) rather than in a note (3.22.2.10).  [line 438]
  

• The exception for early printed resources that says to record all sequences of unnumbered leaves or pages is followed by a later exception that says not to record sequences of unnumbered leaves or pages containing advertisements.  To resolve this conflict, we agreed to delete "all" from the first exception. [line 467]
  

• The JSC agreed to change the caption at 3.4.5.10 from Folded leaves and pages to Folded leaves on the grounds that it is physically impossible to fold a page.  We left unresolved the question of how to record the extent of an item that has folded leaves containing numbered pages. [line 471]
  

• The Japanese orihon format (a sheet folded accordion style) will be treated as a volume.  An example of a note explaining the format will be added to 3.22.7: "Leaves are joined end to end and folded accordion style."  [line 473]
  

• The definitions of Base Material and Applied Material were simplified, in part to allow Base Material to be used when there is no applied material. I don't have access to the exact text of the revised definitions tonight.  [3.6, 3.7; line 490]
  

• The JSC confirmed that Type of recording (3.16.2) should be confined to how a resource is encoded for playback.  Details about an analog capture recording from which a digital recording for playback has been made can be recorded in a note.  The values for this element will not be limited to analog and digital, in order to allow for other recording formats such as acoustic.  [lines 500-502]
  

• An element sub-type for Resolution will be added to 3.19, Digital file characteristics; this will allow the resolution in pixels or megapixels to be recorded.  [line 508]
  

• Regional encoding will remain in 3.19, Digital file characteristics rather than 3.18, Video characteristics.  3.18 is used only for attributes of analog recordings; attributes of digital video are included in 3.19.  [line 513]
  

• We observed that 3.22 is not a complete list of notes on carrier characteristics; in addition, there are instructions on recording details (as notes) under many of the elements in Chapter 3.  [line 523]

Chapter 4:  No decisions to report.


Chapter 5: General guidelines

• The definition of "access point" was clarified (a) to indicate that the term includes both authorized [formerly "preferred"] and variant access points, and (b) to indicate that access points in Section 2 cover both works and expressions.  [5.1.3; lines 541-542]

Chapter 6: Identifying works and expressions

• 6.2.2.8 for incunables will be deleted, because the instructions are consistent with the general instructions for pre-1501 works (6.2.2.5)  [line 568]
  

• "(normally the year)" will be removed from 6.4.1.1 and other scope statements; the specific instructions will be given in 6.4.1.3 and comparable instructions.  This resolves an apparent conflict between the scope and instructions. [line 578, etc.]
  

• Original language of work will be deleted, as this element was removed from FRAD.  All language information is at the expression level.  The language of the original/first expression of the work can be recorded in a note.  [6.7; line 589]
  

• It was agreed that the definitions of identifiers (6.9.1, etc.) will contain language indicating that the identifier may also be for a surrogate for the work [etc.] (e.g., an authority record).  [line 591]
  

• Some possible discrepancies between the text and the element analysis table were pointed out and the explanation is one of the things that will have to be explained to catalogers using RDA.  Note that, for example, there are two elements named "Date of work" (6.4 and 6.21); it was explained that the sections and subsections of the additional instructions for musical, legal, religious, etc., works are often not formally defined as elements, but are simply additional instructions for elements defined elsewhere.  Therefore, 6.4 and 6.21 are in fact one element.  Furthermore, the subsections of 6.21, dealing with date of promulgation of a law and date of signing of a treaty are not in fact element subtypes, but are simply additional sets of instructions under the Date of work element.  All of this is further complicated by the fact that many of these non-elements are labeled as core elements.  The JSC took a deep breath and decided that (a) the names of the section of additional instructions will be given distinctive names, e.g., 6.21 will be named "Date of legal work" and (b) the core element requirements will make it clear what the core element in question actually is: e.g., for 6.21 and its subsections, the core element required is "Date of work". [line 620]
  

• It was decided that not all examples of preferred title of expression or of preferred access points of expression need to identify a single separate expression, but that at least one example should show how the preferred title or preferred access point for a single expression would be created.  The most common example is that of a translation; many of the current examples identify all the expressions in a particular language, which is legitimate, but we would like to see at least one example that identifies a particular translation.  [line 654]

Chapter 7: Describing content

• The scope statement for Nature of the content (7.2.1.1) will refer to the "primary content".  [line 671]
  

•  The definitions of longitude and latitude will be generalized so as not to be limited to the Earth.  [6.4.2; line 673]
  

• The use of abbreviations for academic degrees will not be specified in 7.9.2 and abbreviations for academic degrees will not be added to Appendix B; however, the examples under 7.9.2 will continue to use abbreviations.
  

• The scope of Date of capture (7.11.3) will be revised to allow recording a range of dates.  [line 682]
  

• Form of notation (7.13) will be expanded to include form of notated movement.  [line 686]
  

• The terms under Form of tactile notation (7.13.4) will be changed to braille code, computing braille code, mathematics braille code, Moon code, music braille code, tactile graphic, tactile musical notation.  Level of contraction (e.g., Grade 2) will be treated as a detail to be recorded in a note.  [line 688-689]
  

• The revised definitions of full screen and wide screen provided by ALA were accepted.  [7.19.1.3; line 706]