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CMC Business Meeting Report 2022

MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

CATALOGING AND METADATA COMMITTEE

Business Meeting, MLA Annual Meeting 2022, Virtual

Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 11:00a.m.-12:55p.m., MT

1. Introduction and announcements (Vermeij)

  • Hermine Vermeij called the meeting to order and put the agenda in the chat. She noted that this meeting is the second annual virtual meeting.
  • Introductions were made around the table by all the officers present. Joshua Henry announced that he will be leaving Westminster Choir College for a new job at the University of Oklahoma.
  • Hermine put the MLA Code of Conduct in the chat as well and uploaded the agenda again for those who joined a little late. She reminded everyone that committee members can speak without recognition, but others need to be recognized by the chair, preferably by typing “???” into the chat or raise their hands.
  • Hermine said that she will not share her screen so that she can see everyone’s faces, and she encouraged others to have their camera on during the meeting.
A. Adjustments to agenda, conduct

i. There were no adjustments to the agenda

B. Thanks to outgoing members

i. Rebecca Belford, Vocabularies Subcommittee (VS) Chair

ii. Joshua Henry, Secretary/Webmaster

iii. Beth Iseminger, SACO Music Funnel Coordinator

C. Welcome to incoming members

i. Janelle West, VS Chair

ii. Rebecca Belford, Incoming Chair

iii. Kristi Bergland, Secretary/Webmaster

iv. Leo Martin, SACO Music Funnel Coordinator

D. Administrative business

i. Documents (on CMC website)

1. CMC annual reports 2021 on CMC Reports page

2. Liaison reports from summer 2021 and winter 2022 (except CC:DA) on CMC Reports page

a. Hermine confirmed with Keith Knop that due to a change in ALA scheduling, CC:DA did not have a meeting. Keith also mentioned that he would go into more detail at the Content Standards Subcommittee (CSS) meeting.

3. CMC roster 2022-2023 (CMC Rosters page will be updated after the conference)

4. CMC Handbook (includes CMC calendar)

ii. Upcoming MLA programs:

1. Cataloging and Metadata Town Hall – Thursday, February 24, 1:00 p.m.-2:25 p.m. MT

2. The Journey to Enlightenment Continues: Further conversations between public and technical services professionals – Friday, March 4, 1:30 p.m.-2:55 p.m. MT

a. This program is co-sponsored between CMC and the Public Services Committee. It is a follow up session to a session from the MLA 2020 conference which covered the same topic. Hermine encouraged everyone to attend and try to bring along their colleagues who work in public services so that the conversation is as fruitful as possible.

iii. Upcoming eLearning events (announcements coming soon): Fundamentals of Music Cataloging eLearning Bundle, a collaboration between ALA and MLA

        • Hermine pointed out that CMC has been waiting to provide some of these courses for a few years as we all waited for the RDA 3R project to conclude and settle.

1. Introduction to Music Cataloging (4-week e-course taught by Keith Knop), May 2-27

2. Music Cataloging with LC Vocabularies (4-week eCourse taught by Leo Martin), May 30-June 24

3. Music Cataloging with Library of Congress Classification (4-week eCourse taught by Kirk-Evan Billet), July 11-August 5

4. Using the new RDA Toolkit to Catalog Music (3-part webinar taught by Keith Knop), August 9-11

iv. CMC openings and deadline for applications (Sunday, March 6)

1. Hermine reminded everyone that there are openings on all three subcommittees (Content Standards, Encoding Standards, and Vocabularies), and that the deadline to apply is the end of day on Sunday, March 6, which is the last day of the conference. Applicants can send a brief email to Hermine or the subcommittee chairs, Keith Knop (CSS), Karen Peters (ESS), and Rebecca Belford (VS), including a preference for which subcommittee they want to serve on, confirming their ability to meet CMC expectations as outlined in the CMC Handbook, and their music cataloging background. Applications will be reviewed at the CMC executive session at the end of the conference, and applicants will be informed shortly afterward. Official appointment letters from the MLA president will come a few weeks after that. Hermine briefly outlined the requirements to become a member, which include being an MLA member in good standing, willingness to actively participate in discussions and assignments throughout the year. Kristi Bergland reminded Hermine that a new requirement is the completion of the anti-bias training.

2. Brief reports and highlights

  • Hermine reminded everyone that there are many reports linked to the agenda, and those interested in more detail can read the reports at their leisure.
A. Subcommittees

i. Content Standards (Knop)

1. Keith Knop highlighted from the report that there will be an RDA Toolkit update scheduled for March 23, 2022, which will include new material for the MLA Best Practices. MARC examples and introductory material is being moved to an external document, which is available for feedback from CMC members on the CMC Wiki until the end of day on Friday.

ii. Encoding Standards (Peters)

1. Karen Peters highlighted from the report that the Metadata for Music Resources (MMR) Task Group finished their site redesign and will unveil it at the ESS meeting. The MARC Cataloging Efficiency Task Group is finishing its final report, and it’s going to make recommendations for changes to the MLA Best Practices. MARC Update 32 and 33 were released. Karen will discuss in more detail at the CMC Town Hall the changes to how we catalog representative expression elements. Karen also briefly mentioned that at the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) meeting, there was a discussion paper about putting subject relationships between works and expressions into authority records. The Library of Congress said that they will not do that since they believe that that information belongs in bibliographic records, and they further alluded to experimenting with migrating title, including name-title authority records, to bibliographic records since they believe it will work better in BIBFRAME. Hermine said that we can circle back to this topic if there is time at the end of the meeting.

iii. Vocabularies (Belford)

1. Rebecca Belford pointed out that the agenda for the VS meeting is light this year. She highlighted that discussion will include the rollout of plurals for non-preferred terms in the Types of Composition list, recommendations for gendered vocal terms, and best practices for retrospective implementation of faceted vocabularies in which Casey Mullin will be available in his role as SAC Subcommittee on Faceted Vocabularies (SSFV) chair to comment and answer questions.

B. Pan-CMC work with other groups

i. Metadata standards for audio and video: work with NISO (Urberg)

1. No report was given since Michelle Urberg was unable to attend the meeting.

C. Working group

i. MLA Linked Data Working Group (Kishimoto)

1. Kevin Kishimoto reported that the Working Group was very active this past year, which included revising the Performed Music Ontology (PMO) to better function and be more practical with developments in linked data and BIBFRAME since the creation of PMO in 2016. The group also experimented with creating linked data using PMO in the Sinopia editor, meeting monthly to discuss assignments given the month prior. The working group is hoping to add members for the upcoming year and interested people can contact Kevin. He also pointed out that the group could not accomplish much in November and December due to Sinopia undergoing constant development updates.

2. Hermine asked Kevin if he knew what the future of Sinopia looks like in conjunction with the end of the LD4P grant. Kevin said that he doesn’t have an official answer, but he believes that the grant will be extended or that Sinopia can continue to be used even if they are not given more money. He also pointed out that Sinopia should be supported for five years after the end of the grant, which would include fixing bugs but not necessarily further developments.

D. Additional reports

i. NACO-Music Project (Scharff)

1. Before Mark Scharff gave a brief report on the work of the NACO-Music Project, he asked Karen Peters if there was any documentation about Library of Congress’s consideration of moving title authority information to bibliographic records. Karen clarified that Sally McCallum from the Library of Congress (LC) made the announcement and that there was an internal study done at LC, which she cannot distribute at this time. Karen has been told that when working in BIBFRAME, that one should link to hubs instead of name-title authority records for now. She recommended that anyone interested in the topic should explore and experiment with id.loc.gov. Damian Iseminger pointed out that before any official action is taken to migrate any data or change cataloging procedures, that a discussion between LC, the British Library, and OCLC among others will have to take place. Karen further clarified that catalogers in the MARC environment will continue current practice, but as someone who will have to work in BIBFRAME, she is concerned about this potential change.

2. Mark reported that the advisory committee has a new chair, and he thanked Mary Huismann for her extra year of service. He mentioned that there is a vacancy coming up and that he put out a call for applicants. He has not seen any applications come through yet, but it is possible that he has not gotten to it yet if the applicant did not use the subject line requested. Mark mentioned some retirements of NACO-Music Project participants, which resulted in the decrease in total combined new/changed statistics. However, the number of new records increased. Mark wondered whether the decrease in changed records could be correlated with people going back to work in the office, which would result in less catalog maintenance work that was a mainstay during the lockdowns.

3. Mark mentioned that a takeaway from the PCC participants meeting was that Wikidata is going to be a hot topic this year, in particular a possible project at the Library of Congress where they will harvest Wikidata items and convert them into light NACO records that meet PCC and LC requirements.

4. Based on Josh Henry’s job announcement, Mark encouraged everyone to notify him when they change institutions or know of others that change institutions.

5. Phyllis Jones asked Mark where the Wikidata records will reside. Mark said that the participants would likely create a Wiki item and then convert it to a MARC record, and the MARC record would reside in the Library of Congress Authority File.

ii. SACO Music Funnel (B. Iseminger)

1. Beth Iseminger reported that the funnel was busy this past year. Beth thanked Leo Martin for being willing to step up as the new coordinator. Beth and Leo have been working together on proposals and revising documentation, some of which is now on the SACO Music Funnel page on the CMC website (Beth thanked Josh for making the changes to the website). The SACO Music Funnel page on the LC website is in the process of being updated.

iii. BIBCO Music Funnel (Mullin)

1. Casey Mullin was not able to attend the meeting. Hermine asked if there were any questions based on the written report that Casey provided. There were no questions.

iv. CMC Secretary/Webmaster (Henry)

1. Josh Henry reported that he trained Kristi Bergland, who will become CMC Secretary/Webmaster this year. Josh mentioned that one of the plugins used for the website has been deprecated, which has resulted in parts of the website malfunctioning. He encouraged people to report any problems they come across. Josh mentioned that a big project was adding plural terms to the Types of Composition list.

2. Keith asked whether Josh had any information about the whole MLA website migrating to a different platform. Josh did not have any information, but he will likely hear about it at the Website Committee meeting later in the week.

v. Music Cataloging Bulletin (Billet)

1. Kirk-Evan Billet reported that everything is proceeding normally and that there is a new coordinator at AR Editions, who is interested in hearing any suggestions.

vi. Library of Congress (Vita/D. Iseminger)

1. Damian Iseminger reported on personnel changes, including Amy Strickland now heading the new Recorded Sound Processing Unit, Carla Martin heading a new section at Recorded Sound, and Janis Young moving out of the Policy division.

2. Damian clarified that LC’s BIBFRAME 100 project pertains to those responsible mainly for monographs. It will be up to the other divisions that have independent cataloging, including the Music Division, whether they will adopt BIBFRAME. Damian indicated that he would resist adopting BIBFRAME until certain issues are resolved, not the least of which is how medium of performance and aggregates are handled.

3. Mark Scharff asked if Damian could elaborate on the issues that Damian just mentioned. Damian said that the medium of performance issues are similar to what Kevin was talking about with LDWG, in that PMO needed to be simplified. Now that it has been simplified, the sticking point is finding the people and time to test it. Suggestions have also been made about how to deal with aggregates, but those have also not been tested. Damian pointed out that the Music Division will certainly not move to BIBFRAME until the aggregate issue is resolved. Mark was surprised that catalogers outside of music are not as equally concerned with aggregates. Damian pointed out that monographic cataloging does not need the full complexity of an aggregate model, and in the interest of getting BIBFRAME off the ground, monographic catalogers will move to BIBFRAME. Damian said that LC will eventually get to resolving the matter.

4. Keith Knop asked if Damian knew if there are music people involved with testing the LCC-PC-PSs in the official RDA Toolkit. Damian said that he has been involved, but other participants have not been chosen, and he is not aware of any other music people that have expressed interest in being involved.

vii. OCLC (Weitz)

1. Jay Weitz reported that OCLC will be installing the WorldCat validation update on Thursday, which includes the bibliographic and authority updates from late November, the addition of the authority field 688, and MARC codes that have been announced from November through late January.

2. Jay announced a new editor in residence, Kelly West, who will work to reduce systemic racism and other problems in the Dewey Decimal Classification.

3. Communication tools

A. MLA Slack

1. Hermine asked if there was any interest in incorporating the MLA Slack channel into CMC’s communication. Hermine mentioned that she did not used to like Slack but has since embraced it for asking quick questions, which seems better than crafting an email. Mark Scharff asked Hermine to explain what Slack is exactly. Hermine clarified that Slack is an instant messaging platform with separate channels that cover various topics that people can subscribe to. Allison McClanahan asked if Hermine was referring to an existing unofficial MLA Slack channel. Hermine said that she was, and she believed that it was unofficial. Rebecca Belford said that she is not a fan of Slack, but that she thought something to take into general consideration is whether Library of Congress employees who are members of MLA would be allowed to use Slack. Damian said that they could use the browser version of Slack but not the client version. Many people commented in chat, some saying that they like Slack and others commenting on not wanting another communication platform or that instant messaging is too distracting. Keith Knop said that Slack was useful at his institution when everyone was working remotely, but since being back in the office, it is underutilized. Hermine mentioned that she saw the benefit to Slack when her institution was migrating to a new system; Slack allowed everyone to ask quick questions which helped speed up the workflow. Kevin Kishimoto mentioned in chat that Slack only works if everyone is invested in it, and Hermine agreed that the benefit of Slack does hinge on several people using it regularly. Hermine commented that based on comments both in chat and said aloud, it sounded like there was not enough interest. Damian Iseminger further pointed out that Slack is likely more beneficial for a group of people who work together on a regular basis rather than CMC, which is on a volunteer basis and not a day-to-day priority. However, Damian did see the benefit of using Slack for a specific project within CMC. Mark asked if Slack is useful for things that might usually be taken care of through a Zoom call but more lightweight. Hermine clarified that Slack is good for informal communication to quickly resolve something such as moving a meeting to a different time slot. Karen Peters pointed out that Rahni Kennedy asked in chat about whether there has been an issue with communication in CMC that we need to seek another mode of communication. Hermine said that she is not aware of any major problem other than getting enough participation on some projects, which could be a bandwidth problem rather than a mode of communication problem. Hermine pointed out that she was just testing out the waters. Rebecca commented that she thinks email can still be a quick mode of communication. Hermine wrapped up the conversation by recommending that those interested in joining the MLA Slack should reach out to Matthew Vest.

B. Existing tools: Wiki, email lists, CMC blog

i. Hermine said that she was not aware of any issue with our current communication platforms, but she wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions for improvement. Mark commented that what works for a group of people might be different than for an individual. In the chat, many were commenting on the wiki (PBworks) being clunky while others said that they like the wiki.

C. MLA BAR update on GitHub

i. Hermine asked Keith to give an overview of CMC’s request to use GitHub, which meant that board action was required (BAR). Keith reported that utilizing GitHub would be useful for storing the various versions of the MLA Best Practices and external documentation needed in conjunction with RDA. Having stable URLs is important and allows for updates to occur without breaking links, which might not be fixed for an extended period if we only have them stored in the RDA Toolkit. Hermine said that CMC was inquiring with the MLA Board about whether CMC is free to set up its own GitHub or whether MLA as a whole wants to set it up with its hierarchy. Details have to be ironed out, e.g., whose email is associated with the account. Hermine asked if there were any concerns with the response from the board. Keith said that file naming could be a concern, because file names should not be changed in order to maintain functioning links, but if the board is just wanting to name the sections in the repository, that would be fine. Kristi Bergland said that as a board member she could clarify that the board just wants to make sure that the structure of the repository makes sense so that other branches of MLA can understand if they choose to use it in the future. Damian commented that he was wary of becoming too bureaucratic, and that CMC should feel free to create a GitHub account without getting the blessing of the board. Hermine pointed out, however, that we would be using GitHub for official MLA documents, and Keith reiterated that point. Damian commented that he envisioned using GitHub for storing the raw data, but anything official would be hosted on the MLA website. Keith said he was hoping the board would just let CMC do what they wanted, but he thinks the board’s response is reasonable. Kristi pointed out that the board was not trying to micromanage the situation but was simply trying to answer the question as it was put to the board. She further recommended that, in the future, wording a BAR differently or not submitting one at all might be beneficial.

D. Revisit existing tools: Wiki, email lists, CMC blog

i. Hermine circled back to discussing the wiki after seeing comments in the chat. She noted that many people had commented on the wiki being clunky. She asked if anyone knew of better alternatives. Damian suggested using Basecamp due to his experience using it on the RDA Steering Committee. Kathy Glennan pointed out that she launched the wiki for the then Descriptive Cataloging Subcommittee about 10 years ago. Having the same platform for a long period has resulted in several documents and such being stored on it, which contributes to some of the clunkiness. However, it was free, being early adopters allowed for larger storage space, and it allowed restricted access. Kathy also spoke to her experience using Basecamp. She does not think that it is free, and she pointed out that the commenting feature is not as streamlined as one would hope. However, if CMC wants to explore Basecamp, there are enough members with experience in Basecamp that it is a viable option. Hermine mentioned Confluence being a more intuitive platform, but it is expensive. Hermine then mentioned that although the wiki might be clunky, it still functions and meets the needs of CMC. Mark Scharff commented that the wiki is at least easy to use; even when only needing to use it every now and then, he does not have to figure out how it works each time. Keith Knop pointed out that the documents on the CSS section of the wiki have at least maintained a hierarchy, which helps with navigating. Karen Peters asked if storage space on the wiki was an issue. Kathy pointed out that the owners of the wiki space could look to see how much storage is being used. Keith looked it up, and said we were using 128 MB out of 5 GB, meaning we are not in any danger of using up all our storage space. Rebecca asked whether our files on the wiki were backed up somewhere just in case wiki went out of business or something of that nature. Kathy said that it can be backed up, but she is not sure if it has been backed up in a while. Hermine said that it sounded like there was not enough concern with Wiki’s downsides to go through the hassle of finding a replacement. Mark pointed out that Kevin Kishimoto asked about Dokkio in the chat, which is a cloud storage solution created by the same makers as PBworks (i.e., the wiki). Karen pointed out that Dokkio might be free to begin but would switch to a paid subscription at some point. Hermine thanked everyone for their input, but in the interest of time moved on to the next agenda item.

4. MLA 2022 program—reactions to content, meeting times, etc.

A. Discussion/feedback on remote committee meetings

i. Hermine acknowledged that members will not have feedback on the 2022 program since this meeting is happening at the beginning of the conference. However, CMC members did discuss on the wiki the pros and cons of having the committee meetings remote, in person, or hybrid. Hermine summarized that there was a strong desire to have hybrid meetings if the infrastructure was available to support it. Damian asked whether members, from a financial standpoint, would attend the MLA conference if the committee meetings were online. He also wondered whether the board has discussed moving the annual conference away from winter since COVID-19 has become endemic. Kristi Bergland said that the board has had brief preliminary discussions about moving the meetings to the summer for various reasons, including avoiding COVID-19 outbreaks, travel interruptions due to winter weather, and busy schedules during the school year. The board is also discussing changing the format due to equity and inclusion, accessibility, and environmental concerns. Kristi also pointed out that any input from outside of the board is always welcome and can push the conversation along. Hermine pointed out that some in chat were commenting about wanting to hold the CMC Town Hall in person. Hermine mentioned that in previous discussions about virtual vs in-person, many people concluded that the Town Hall lends itself to virtual because it is reporting out rather than discussion based. However, the meetings might be better in person, because they are discussion based. Hermine asked if there were further comments on the matter. Mark commented that when making these decisions he thinks we should also consider how we help people unpack and understand what is being discussed at the Town Hall and the business meetings. Thom Pease mentioned that he would like for the Town Hall to be more interactive and hybrid; on a broader scale, time and space needs to be given in order to work through various issues by allowing further dialogue. Keith summarized comments in the chat, stating that it is nice to have business meetings held on a separate week than the presentations so that you do not have to choose between which to attend. Joshua Henry commented that a downside of that is finding the time to dedicate two weeks to a conference or balancing conference activities with work activities. Karen, Hermine, and Rebecca agreed with Joshua’s point and further elaborated on it. Rebecca asked if the board might reconsider budgeting for infrastructure to allow hybrid conferences. Kristi pointed out that having a smaller physical footprint for the conference opens up the possibility of visiting different venues that would not have been feasible with a larger gathering. Hermine thanked everyone for their input and summarized that we need to explore options for a hybrid conference, how long it should be, and which groups should meet at what times.

B. Please complete the MLA meeting survey when prompted.

i. Hermine reminded everyone to fill out the MLA survey when they receive it.

5. MLA 2023 program and Pan-CMC work

A. Some kind of informal collaborative cataloging demo/working session?

i. Hermine pointed out that there has been interest in another electronic scores session, particularly one that would be interactive or a demonstration of how to catalog them. Keith Knop suggested making it into a kind of “stump the panel” scenario where people bring in their most confusing thing to catalog and see if the panel can demonstrate how to do it. Karen suggested discussing how to use the official RDA to catalog, but she was not sure if the official RDA would be stabilized enough by this time next year to present on it. Keith agreed that we might not be at a place to be able to present on it since PCC will not implement it until late this year. Brad Young suggested presenting on the ethical implementation of LCDGT. Hermine agreed that that would be a great idea and she has been wondering if there is a chance for collaboration with groups outside of CMC to discuss ethical description. Leo Martin suggested that it could be in collaboration with the Diversity Committee and the Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee. Rebecca commented that she believes many people are doing this at their institutions, such as Allison McClanahan, who commented on it in the chat. Janice Bunker called Keith’s attention to Chuck Peters’ comment in chat about creating RDA application profiles for music. Keith said that he could possibly present on it if there is enough interest, but that he has not done much with application profiles. Damian thought that it could be a good topic to cover, especially for those who do not catalog music often in their jobs, or who may need to create application profiles for specific projects such as pre-1800 music. Kevin jumped back to discussing ethical descriptions and suggested putting out best practices for it. Damian agreed with Kevin.

6. Adjourn

A. Hermine thanked everyone for their participation and adjourned the meeting.