OLAC Newsletter
Vol. 29 | No. 2| June 2009

The OLAC Newsletter (ISSN: 0739-1153) is a quarterly publication of the Online Audiovisual Catalogers, Inc. appearing in March, June, September and December. Permission is granted to copy and disseminate information contained herein, provided the source is acknowledged.

In this issue

From the Editor

Treasurer's Report

News and Announcements :

• 2010 OLAC Conference
• Playaways and RDA
• Task Force on Music Genre Headings
• The Best of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly

News from OCLC

Book Reviews:

• Uniform Titles for Music

OLAC Cataloger's Judgment:

• The Wide, the Full, and the Ugly
• An Animated Discussion of Technique
• Mysteries of Field 043
• On-Demand or Locally Reproduced DVD?
• The Remoteness of PDF Illustrations

News and Announcements
Barbara Vaughan, Column Editor

2010 OLAC Conference in Macon, Georgia
The OLAC Executive Board is pleased to announce that it has accepted the proposal from OLAC members Julia Huskey and Muriel Jackson to host the 2010 OLAC Conference at Macon, Georgia. The conference will be held Thursday, October 14, 2010 through Sunday, October 17, 2010.

Please watch the OLAC list for further information and details about the conference, including applications for the OLAC Conference Scholarship and Poster Session presentations.

If you are interested in serving on the Program Committee, please contact Julie Huskey

Submitted by: Bobby Bothmann, OLAC President
and Julie Huskey

Playaways and RDA

The OLAC/MLA Joint Task Force on Best Practice Guidelines for Cataloging Playaways has completed its review of the implications of the new RDA rules for Playaway cataloging, based on the latest RDA draft. Playaways are stand-alone, pre-loaded digital audio players, usually used for audiobooks (see http://store.playawaydigital.com/ for more information).

The report, entitled Playaways and RDA: Summary of relevant sections from RDA Chapters 3, 6, and 7, is available at http://www.olacinc.org/drupal/capc_files/PlayawaysAndRDA.pdf or from the OLAC Cataloging Policy Committee publications page at http://www.olacinc.org/drupal/?q=node/12

Submitted by:
Kelley McGrath
OLAC CAPC chair

Task Force on Music Genre Headings

The Music Library Association's Bibliographic Control Committee has formed the MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force to work collaboratively with the Library of Congress in developing the music portion of LC's genre/form thesaurus. The Task Force is reviewing the lists which LC has posted to its genre/form website (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genremusic.html) and making suggestions to LC about new and existing terms. The Task Force is also gathering comments from the music community at large and from anyone with an interest in the music genre/form project. Comments can be made through July 1, 2009.

The Task Force has set up the following wiki to facilitate discussion about the project: http://musicgenrepublicforum.pbworks.com/. Anyone with comments or questions about existing music genre/form/medium terms, the LC lists, suggestions for additional terms and/or the music genre/form projectin general should feel free to share their comments via this wiki. Instructions for setting up a pbworks account and leaving comments can be found at: http://musicgenrepublicforum.pbworks.com/How-to-leave-comments-and-use-pbworks

The official charge of the Task Force is as follows: The MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force will review the genre/form and medium of performance lists posted by the LC Policy and Standards Division (PSD) on their genre/form website. The group will suggest additional terms from LCSH, from other established lists (e.g., the MLA Types of Composition list, the Ethnographic Thesaurus), and from reference sources. Suggestions for genre/form and medium of performance terms will also be solicited from the MLA membership at large. The Task Force will vet the terms suggested by its members and by the MLA membership and will forward these terms on to PSD for possible inclusion in the genre/form and medium of performance lists. The initial phase of the project, the vetting and submission of terms, should be completed by the end of July 2009.

Submitted by:
Beth Flood
Chair, MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force
Music and Media Cataloger
Loeb Music Library, Harvard University

The Best of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Award

Volume 45 of CCQ had many well-written articles on a wide array of topics relevant to catalogers, making the naming of a winner a difficult task. The awards panel, consisting of Bobby Bothmann, Mary Curran and Dorothy McGarry (convener), are pleased to announce that the Best of CCQ v.45 has been awarded to Jean Weihs and Lynne Howarth for their article “Designating Materials: From 'Germane Terms' to Element Types” which appears in CCQ 45(4):3-24 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J104v45n04_02). The article, on the eve of the publication of RDA, is a timely examination of the history of the general material designation (GMD) from its evolution as a concept within the AACR tradition to the formal publication of a GMD list in 1978 and through the content versus carrier discussion of the nineties, and ends with a well-crafted, explanation of RDA’s media type, carrier type, and content type. With the imminent publication of RDA, this article invites other scholars to join the theoretical discussion of RDA. The GMD is a good start for the RDA content discussion since it is a topic about which all cataloguers have opinions and a discussion that most of us have followed throughout the decade since the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR.

Submitted by:
Sandy Roe
Editor, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly

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