Re: [ha-Safran]: Africans Librarians Counceil letter sent to LC

[Liz Edelglass]

I have been following the discussion carefully, and I would definitely
support AJL sending such a letter.

Elizabeth Edelglass, Library Director
Dept. of Jewish Education of Greater New Haven
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




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[ha-Safran]: Africans Librarians Counceil letter sent to LC

[daniel . lovins]

re SARs decision
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Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 13:47:34 -0400

Dear Safranim,

I realize there may not be concensus on this issue (I read, e.g., 
Sara Spiegel's
thoughtful email this morning, and just now saw the ARL statement in support of
LC's decision), but I'd still like to propose sending a letter of concern from
AJL (at least the Cataloging Committee?) to Beacher Wiggins along the lines of
the African Librarians Council letter. I'm sharing it with you to see if you
agree with me, but also to ask for suggestions about improving the language. If
you disagree, that's fine too. I'm waiting to get a list of email addresses for
the AJL council, but once I do, I'll share the draft with them as well.

Possible AJL Position Letter:

Beacher J.E. Wiggins
Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540-4300

Dear Director Wiggins,

We are deeply concerned by the decision of the Library of Congress (LC) to
discontinue creation of series authority records (SARs) effective April 20th
(http://www.loc.gov/catdir/series.html). The AJL represents professional
librarians with special expertise in, and responsibility for, acquisitions,
cataloging, collection development, and reference, relating to Judaic Studies,
Hebrew language and literature, and related materials in all types of libraries
and educational institutions. While we appreciate the decision to push the new
policy action date from April 20th back to June 1st (as per
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/delay.html), we urge LC to consider postponing the
new policy indefinitely so that the long-term effects can be more fully
analyzed by the larger cataloging community. It is our sincere hope that LC
administrators will revisit their decision, and agree that a more nuanced
approach to series authority control is warranted. Perhaps simply being more
selective about when to establish series title headings (e.g., prioritizing
university press publications) would help reduce costs.

AJL sympathizes with recent statements from the ALA Executive Board, 
the Library
of Congress Professional Guild, the Africana Librarians Council, and the Music
Library Association, and agrees that the wholesale abandonment of series
authority records, combined with the lack of consultation with other
stakeholders, compromises LC?s professed commitment to uniform bibliographic
standards and cooperative cataloging. We believe it will increase costs to all
libraries, including, quite possibly, the Library of Congress itself. We also
know from daily experience how much our users appreciate being able to search
by series titles, and how useful it is to have such titles normalized and
collocated within our catalogs.

Moreover, we are concerned that this latest decision is just the beginning of a
long-term retrenchment of LC?s commitment to bibliographic control. In a
report recently commissioned by the Library of Congress, Karen Calhoun has
proposed reducing the number of data elements included in bibliographic records
and eliminating Library of Congress Subject Headings. If present trends
continue, and LC further abdicates its leadership role, the pool of shared
cataloging which has done so much to reduce costs and nourish American
libraries over the past 30 years will either dry up from neglect or become
brackish with inferior content. With cutbacks in expert staff (130 LC
cataloging positions eliminated in 2005 alone (?), let alone staff reductions
in virtually all other American libraries), the same substandard records are
increasingly being recycled throughout the system.

We believe the new LC policy will have a profound effect on
cataloging-on-receipt and shelf-ready book activities across the country as
costs are shifted to individual libraries, perhaps saving the LC some money
now, but costing the larger U.S. library community a great deal in the future.

 The greatest gains in efficiency will come from heightened 
rather than lowered
compliance with standards. By adhering to international agreements and best
practices, cataloging output is optimized for interoperability, which means
that multiple agencies can trade and repurpose records without special editing,
re-keying, or other human intervention. Indeed, it is precisely through
excessive and repetitive editing and redundant record creation that the
cataloging costs are driven upwards, and is precisely by cutting back on
standards that we undermine data integrity and interoperability for our
libraries and patrons.

We thank you for your consideration.



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[ha-Safran]: Africans Librarians Counceil letter sent to LC

[Heidi G. Lerner]

re SARs decision
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Dear safranim,
This letter was sent to the Library of Congress from the Africana 
Librarians Council. I am certain that our membership and the 
institutions that we represent share similar concerns.
Thanks, Heidi Lerner

Heidi G. Lerner
Hebraica/Judaica Cataloger
Catalog Dept.
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, CA  94305-6004
ph: 650-725-9953
fax: 650-725-1120
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Original Message -
From: Margaret Hughes
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 10:08 AM
Subject: [Fwd: ALC letter sent to LC re SARs decision]


Dear ALC colleagues - You'll find below a text version of the
letter from the Africana Librarians Council sent to the Library
of Congress regarding the 20 April 2006 decision to cease creating
series authority records. [snip]
Yours, Lauris


TEXT OF LETTER

12 May 2006

Beacher J.E. Wiggins
Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540-4300

Dear Director Wiggins,

The membership of the Africana Librarians Council - the
organization of professional librarians working in African
studies and a sponsored organization of the African Studies
Association (U.S.) - has requested that I notify you
regarding our concern over the Library of Congress's 20
April 2006 decision to cease creating series authority
records and providing controlled series access in
bibliographic records.

Series control, as with all aspects of bibliographic
control, is critically important in the ever-expanding
world of book publishing in Africa. As with many industries
in developing countries, African book publishing often
seems unsystematic, with books typically printed in short
runs and reprinted several years later exhibiting changes
in bibliographic elements. We see any erosion in
bibliographic control as harmful to the Library of
Congress's mission to collect research materials from
African countries and also to its Cooperative Acquisition
Program partnerships with U.S. research libraries.

We observe that African studies readers in the U.S. rely
upon series names as brands of quality. Several major
African publishers have made formal arrangements with U.S.
and other publishers to co-publish, reprint, or distribute
their titles outside Africa. To navigate through this
confusing and duplicative literature, bibliographers,
acquisitions librarians, and - most important - readers,
especially scholarly readers, need controlled series names.

Your annual report for FY2005 noted that the Library of
Congress has moved to improve the cataloging capabilities
of its overseas offices. The Library of Congress's overseas
offices serve as a major acquisitions source for U.S.
research libraries. Your achievement - including direct
inputting into Voyager - will accelerate access to overseas
acquisitions for American readers, as the bibliographic
records created by the overseas offices are becoming
available to Library of Congress Cooperative Acquisition
Program partners even as we unpack the shipping boxes!

Preserving the privileges of overseas office cataloging
staff to produce authority records takes advantage of in-
country headings research, which replaces costly
transatlantic communication. Continuing the practice brings
economic benefits by reducing State-side workloads - both
at the Library of Congress and among those U.S. research
libraries building African collections with one or no
Africanist cataloger - with no or negligible fiscal
increases. And most important, it would strengthen the
professionalization of librarians in developing countries.

We hope that you will lead a re-examination of the Library
of Congress's series authority decision. We ask also that
you avoid making similar decisions in the future without
consulting your partners in the Library of Congress's
Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and your professional
colleagues in the Asian, African and Middle Eastern Section
of the Association of College and Research Libraries and in
the Cataloging & Classification Section Committee on
Cataloging Asian & African Material of the Association for
Library Collections & Technical Services.

Pleas