PCC Policy Committee (PCC) Meeting November 3-4, 2016 Outcomes
The meeting agenda is available from: http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo- 2016/PoCo-Agenda-2016.docx
Message from Matthew Beacom, PCC chair: “A special highlight of the meeting was a visit by the new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden. She came in briefly after lunch, said gracious things about catalogers and the work PCC does, introduced herself, shook hands. She was charming, and it was exciting in a way that PoCo meetings are usually not.”
Photo below, courtesy of Cynthia Whitacre (OCLC). From left to right: Robert Maxwell (Brigham Young University), Dr. Carla Hayden, George Prager (New York University Law Library), Beacher Wiggins (Library of Congress) at the 2016 PoCo Meeting.
. Thursday November 3, 2016
1. Strategic planning: perspectives and connections (Dianne Houghton, Library of Congress) PowerPoint
Dianne discussed the purpose of strategic planning and provided many ideas for the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) to consider as it prepares for the facilitated strategic planning session on November 1, 2017. Dianne described the phases of strategic planning and attendees referred to the phases throughout the PoCo meeting:
Set the stage: Making decisions on planning; getting organized, and moving forward.
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Face the facts: Consider what’s happening around you -- both externally and internally -- that will impact your work. Set the Direction: Determine goals and priorities, and the strategies and/or approaches for success. Map the Work: Develop action plans that specify who is going to do what and by when to achieve your goals. Track, Measure, Evaluate & Adjust: Ongoing refinement and evaluation of performance, risk, culture, communications, data reporting, and other strategic management.
2. Strategic Directions January 2015-December 2017: review & update actions
2a. SD 1.1 Environmental scan to evaluate categories of linked data training that are needed; existing training resources that the PCC can use; training programs that should be commissioned from experts in those domains; training that the PCC will need to develop itself.
Discussion: The PCC Standing Committee on Training (SCT) submitted its “Report on Available Linked Data Training Resources” in 2015 (revised April 2016). One of the resources listed in the report, the LD4PE Exploring Linked Data site provides a competency index and links to resources for learning linked data concepts. BIBFRAME specific training is an area identified by the SCT report as not comprehensively covered by available web resources including the LD4PE Exploring Linked Data site.
Actions: a. Continue to partner with and monitor the development of the LD4PE Exploring Linked Data site. b. Investigate using the LD4PE Exploring Linked Data site as a tool to develop PCC linked data training. c. Develop BIBFRAME specific training material.
Who: SCT, Secretariat, Linked Data Advisory Committee, LC
2b. SD 1.2 Develop sandbox: Work with potential partners to provide discussion platforms, sandboxes, and testbeds for experimentation with linked data standards and applications (e.g., BIBFRAME profiles and editors).
Discussion: Not having a triple store sandbox is a long term strategic problem. For now the focus should be on walking catalogers through what linked data tools and interfaces
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look like, why they are being developed and what they can accomplish. The following are developments which will help fulfil the goals of this strategic action:
a. Video tutorials for the Vitro project at Cornell, “Integrated Ontology Editor and Semantic Web Application” will be publicly available in the near future. b. The SHARE Catalogue will be demonstrated at OpCo in 2017. c. The BIBFRAME editor 2.0 will be publicly available as a demonstration tool in conjunction with phase two of LC’s BIBFRAME pilot.
Action: Cornell will make its Vitro videos available to the PCC community
Discussions on other actions in Strategic Directions January 2015-December 2017 were deferred to agenda topics related to those actions.
3. Exploring ISNI and PCC as partners in authority control & identity management
Discussion: The proposal for PCC umbrella membership outlines the benefits of pursuing the umbrella model. Specific details of ISNI membership require further exploration.
Actions: a. PoCo accepted the PCC umbrella membership proposal in principle. b. A sub-group of PoCo members will be set up to explore the next steps.
Who: PCC Steering Committee will set up the sub-group
4. Future of the PCC Standing Committee on Automation (SCA) Discussion document
Decision: Keep SCA as a standing committee, but write a new charge and rename the group. Writing the charge will help determine the new name. The new charge and name will be sent to PoCo for approval.
Who: Matthew Beacom, Kate Harcourt, and Lori Robare (the PCC chairs) in consultation with Ben Abrahamse.
Action: Add a provision to the governance document to periodically reevaluate the charges of the standing committees.
Who: PCC chairs/Secretariat
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5. Standing Committee on Standards (SCS) Report
6. Standing Committee on Training (SCT) Report
7. LC BIBFRAME Update LC BIBFRAME Phase 1 Pilot participants continue to process some of their work with the BIBFRAME 1.0 editor and meet once a month to discuss thoughts on Phase 2 Pilot. The current target for beginning the Phase 2 Pilot is the first quarter of calendar year 2017. Preparation for Phase 2 involves converting legacy bibliographic data to BIBFRAME 2.0. The PCC groups mapping the BSR and CSR to BIBFRAME 2.0 will share the results of their work with LC’s Network Development and MARC Standards Office.
8. PCC URI Task Group report
Discussion: The task group reported on MAC Discussion papers submitted for ALA Midwinter 2017 and the group’s next steps. According to the group’s report: Automated processes for adding URIs to MARC records should be used rather than manual processes. The group has made recommendations to OCLC about adding URIs upon export as well as other specifications related to URIs in MARC records. PCC should work closely with outside stakeholders and PCC task groups to develop best practices for working with URIs in MARC. Training needs associated with working with URIs (e.g. obtaining URIs, URIs for real world objects vs. URIs for authorities, etc.) will be shared with the SCT.
Related topic: PoCo members discussed adding $0 with URIs to existing MARC records. In the current OCLC environment URIs for authorized access points are visibly maintained in Connexion until the access point is controlled. When the authorized access point is controlled the URI is stored behind the scenes (but not deleted). NLM expressed an interest in experimenting with populating OCLC records with URIs for MeSH terms using batch processing.
Actions: a. PoCo endorses NLM’s experiment (assuming experimentation fits in with NLM’s mission)
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b. NLM will share results with the PCC community
9. PCC Linked Data Advisory Committee
Possible white papers: a. What shared infrastructure is needed to support PCC work in a linked data environment? b. Give PoCo one or two issues to focus on to help set the stage for the strategic planning session in November 2017. c. White paper on the concept of provenance in a linked data environment.
Action: Ask the committee members to report back to PoCo about the activities of the many PCC linked data task groups upon which they serve
10. IMLS grant on name authorities: Report
11. SCS/LDAC Task Group on the Work Entity Report
12. Task Group on Identity Management in NACO Report
13. Task Group on coding gender in NACO
Actions:
a. Corrections to the section on MeSH and some other minor changes should be made to the group’s recommendations before posting.
b. The recommendations will be shared with the PCC community for comment and final posting.
Who: Secretariat, LC
14. Relationship designators
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Discussion: A Joint PCC SCT-SCS Task Group developed guidelines for applying relationship designators to authority records in NACO. In a final review, LC’s Policy and Standards Division (PSD) determined that four of the sixteen guidelines were problematic and should not be implemented at this time:
a. pre-approval of proposed terms b. use of non-RDA vocabulary c. jurisdictions and relationships (the RSC is working on this issue) d. subject relationships
Action: The guidelines will be revised to remove these four guidelines for the time being. The guidelines will then be posted and announced as soon as possible.
Who: Secretariat, SCT
15. Authorized Access Points for Translations Proposal
Decision: The task group’s proposal will be implemented as soon as possible. The task group also identified some outstanding issues. PoCo accepted the actions proposed to resolve the outstanding issues. Actions: a. Refer the question of where to place work/expression identifiers to the PCC URI group. b. Investigate the feasibility of batch derivation of work authorities from legacy language version authorities. c. Investigate implications of the proposal for series authorities and for conventional collective title authorities. d. Consider writing a MARC proposal to extend the definition of MARC authority 008/32 to include undifferentiated expressions as well as names. e. Revise LC-PCC Policy Statements as necessary Who: a. The question of work/expression identifiers will be referred to the PCC URI Task Group. b. The SCA will investigate the feasibility of batch derivation from legacy records. c. The SCT will work on series and conventional collective title. d. The SCA and the SCS will collaborate on a 008/32 discussion paper. e. SCS and LC will revise LC-PCC Policy Statements as necessary
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Friday November 4, 2016
1. Planning for the Facilitated Session on Wednesday Nov. 1, 2017
Resources: There is time before the session to develop the direction and setting the stage for the facilitated session. PCC could approach sponsors to fund some of the session, LC itself cannot seek funding from sponsors. If PoCo wishes to bring a special speaker from a PCC institution (other than the facilitator) funding should cover all of the person’s travel expenses.
Ideas: Invite Dianne Houghton (LC) to work with the PCC in preparing for the session and attending at least some of it. Gather thoughts, desires, and ideas of the PCC membership through a survey. Use the survey to reach out to potential partners and trusted sources of standards and metadata to get them engaged as part of shaping the future of the PCC. Actions: a. A web page devoted to the strategic planning process will be created. Links will be provided to recorded webinars, survey results, upcoming events, etc. Who: Secretariat b. Develop a survey for launch in early 2017, results can be posted on the web page and discussed at OpCo and ALA Annual Who: Secretariat, PCC Steering Committee, PoCo volunteers c. The PCC chairs will give a webinar to talk about the strategic planning process and explain the context of the survey before it is launched. The session will be recorded and the link posted on the PCC website. d. The PCC At-Large Meeting at ALA Midwinter 2017 will be partly devoted to a town hall on the strategic planning session, the survey, and gathering feedback. e. Virtual town halls may also be hosted throughout the spring of 2017. f. The PCC chairs will draft some ideas for how Dianne Houghton might participate in the process, Judith Cannan (LC) and Hien Nguyen (LC) will ask her about participating.
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Decisions: The group agreed to develop a 3-year plan in 2017 and will consider making future strategic plans 5-year.
2. Changes in PoCo election process
Agreement: PoCo voted to accept the proposed changes. A revised version of the proposal was posted and distributed to the PCC community on November 14, 2016. The accepted changes are:
Effective spring 2017, all community-elected positions on PoCo will serve as “at- large” representatives. Rather than being slated under a single program on the ballot (BIBCO, CONSER, NACO, SACO), candidates will represent PCC-member institutions and the PCC as a whole. Depending on the needs of PCC at any given time, the Steering and/or Policy Committee may ask the Nominations Committee to recruit from leadership at PCC institutions who have not themselves overseen traditional cataloging or technical services operations. Leaders may be recruited from fields like ‘big data’ management, digital collections management, institutional repositories management, or may have broad administrative expertise in such areas as strategic planning, or fundraising and donor relations.
Decision: PoCo voted to extend eligibility for serving on PoCo to funnel member institutions
Action: The PCC governance document will be revised to include the changes and the decisions will be publicized before the next election.
Who: Secretariat
3. Other changes to the governance document
Actions: a. A guidance document on the roles and responsibilities of the ALCTS representative will be developed. b. All guidance documents will be linked to the governance document. c. The governance document will be revised to reflect all agreed upon changes and sent to PoCo for formal approval. Who: Secretariat
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4. PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group update: LC will pursue the completion of the project in December 2016. The timeline is: December 31, 2016: complete the revision of specifications March 31, 2017: complete index and load testing June 30, 2017: complete indexing and loading September 30, 2017: distribution complete
OCLC and LC will provide advanced and detailed information on the restrictions for record contributions during the file processing periods.
5. CC:DA Report (Lori Robare)
6. PCC Directory: a. The design plan was completed in 2016; a contract to build the directory by the end of FY 2017 is in place. b. PCC institutions and funnel coordinators will set up profiles in the directory. c. The directory will be used to conduct elections, report BIBCO and CONSER statistics, maintain contact information and other information.
7. NACO Consultation/Resolution Board Proposal
Proposal: set up a board of NACO consultants from PCC institutions. Board members will monitor the PCCLIST discussion list for questions and concerns. The board will answer questions directly on the list when possible, e.g. by pointing to documentation that answers the question. For more complicated issues the board will forward the query to an appropriate PCC group, e.g. the SCS to develop a solution.
Agreement: PoCo endorsed the proposal
Action: the PCC Steering Committee in consultation with the NACO Coordinator, Paul Frank (LC), will write a charge for the group.
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