Old Business
Daniel Starr, chair, began the meeting promptly at 12:30pm by introducing the committee. The first agenda item was reports from ALA Midwinter. Patricia Siska, outgoing liaison to MARBI, handed out a report summary from the USMARC Advisory Group (this summary will be in ARLIS/NA Update). Siska suggested that the MARBI liaison should distribute proposals to CAC members prior to the ALA conferences for comments and a representative response.
Starr distributed copies of a response from Lynn El-Hoshy at LC regarding the order of subdivisions, century divisions, and the use of "Modern." Art catalogers at LC had experimented with some of the CAC suggestions, and response was favorable, but there were issues which still needed to be addressed, e.g., consistency of use between western and Asian art. El-Hoshy said that dropping "Modern" from Art, Modern would probably not occur because it is in line with other headings, but that practice could change to usage of Art, Modern only when not limited to a particular century. (E.g., Art--20th century, instead of Art, Modern--20th century.) Starr will discuss LC's response in detail with CAC members via e-mail, and draft a reply.
Starr also distributed copies of a message from Robert Hiatt at LC responding to the proposal on uniform titles for named works of art drafted by Sherman Clarke. The main questions from LC were about language, corporate artistic identities, and the definition of "state" as applied to artworks. After some discussion among the committee members, it was agreed that the matter of corporate artistic identities should be addressed in a separate proposal. Daniel Starr and Nancy Norris will work on this. Sherman Clarke will work on revising the proposal on uniform titles, and will draft a reply to Hiatt.
Starr asked the committee if it would be useful to proceed with drafting a proposal on uniform titles for unnamed works of art (e.g., pottery, furniture, masks, etc.). Linda McRae and Sherman Clarke replied that the uniform title approach would probably not be useful for many types of objects, and Liz O'Keefe suggested that it would be impossible to draft one rule that would cover all types of art objects. The committee agreed that it would be worthwhile to begin discussions on this issue, whether or not a formal proposal will be forthcoming. Starr and Norris indicated they would start discussions among catalogers in their respective local chapters with the aim of drafting a preliminary report by tthey would start discussions among catalogers in their respective local chapters with the aim of drafting a preliminary report by the next ARLIS/NA annual conference.
Starr reported that he had received a response from Judy Kuhagen at LC regarding exhibitions and the proposed revisions to serial conferences. Although the initial group examining serial treatment of conferences excluded exhibitions from their charge, Kuhagen said that LC would look into this per CAC's request. It is expected that the CAC will have a chance to respond to LC's findings.
New Business
Mark Ziomek compared the lists of free-floating subdivisions for personal names and for literary authors for discrepancies, and prepared a hand-out indicating the conflicts. The committee went through the list and discussed the various conflicts and suggested how to resolve them. It was felt by the committee that merging the two lists into one, with suggested changes in practice, would behow to resolve them. It was felt by the committee that merging the two lists into one, with suggested changes in practice, would be a great improvement and simplification that would be praised by the broader library community. Ziomek will work on this and present his draft to the CAC for formal submission to LC.
Siska mentioned that technical services issues impacting cataloging had been discussed at the RLG AAG meeting. She suggested that the CAC ask that before any standards coming from the AAG get official ARLIS/NA approval, they be distributed to the CAC for comment. Starr will raise this issue with Roger Lawson, the CAC's Executive Board liaison.
Starr adjourned the meeting at 2:10 p.m.
Kay Teel
New York University Libraries
(Cleveland Museum of Art Library - as of July 1997)
teel@cma-oh.org