The 2024 annual business meeting of the CMC Vocabularies Subcommittee will be held virtually on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 3:30pm – 4:25pm EST. Please see the meeting agenda for details and relevant links. Guests are encouraged to familiarize themselves with reports and documents ahead of time and bring questions or comments to the meeting. The meeting is open to all, and guests may come and go throughout. Access to the meeting is through the Cvent platform, which is the entry point for all sessions of the Music Library Association 2024 Annual Meeting. Registered MLA and MOUG attendees will find the meeting listed in the schedule; other guests must register (free) via the Cvent open meetings portal. CMC is also hosting an open, virtual CMC Q&A session Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 12:00 PM-12:55 PM EST. In this discussion forum, Town Hall speakers and additional CMC members will be available to answer

In April 2022 the MLA-CMC Vocabularies Maintenance Task Group began initial discussion of LC subject headings related to minstrelsy. Minstrelsy is a form of entertainment originating in the 19th century that depicted caricatures of various racialized groups, but most predominantly African Americans.  The Vocabularies Maintenance Task Group in 2022 consisted of Anne Adams (chair), with Jennifer Olson, Ann Churukian, Allison McClanahan, Tomoko Shibuya, and Clare Spitzer.   In September 2022, after consultation with the African American SACO Funnel, the decision was made to remove references to African Americans from the terms Minstrelsy and Minstrel music in LCSH and create the narrower terms Blackface minstrel music and Blackface minstrel shows. The introduction of the narrower minstrelsy terms provides catalogers and users with more specific terms to identify and label derogatory works. Furthermore, similar “-face” terms used to depict caricatures of other racialized groups can be proposed to provide similar searching and indexing. 

The Vocabularies Subcommittee (Cataloging and Metadata Committee, Music Library Association) is pleased to announce the release of Best Practices for Using LCMPT v. 1.5 (March 1, 2023). Current MLA best practices as well as superseded versions for historical interest may be found at https://cmc.wp.musiclibraryassoc.org/mla-best-practices/. Please make sure direct bookmarks point to the current version (https://cmc.wp.musiclibraryassoc.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/03/BestPracticesforUsingLCMPT_1-5_20230301.pdf). LCMPT v. 1.5 includes some organizational and style changes, minor updates to the introduction, hierarchy, and MARC coding sections, as well as new and revised examples throughout. Revised sections update guidance for use of singer and voice, and visuals and multimedia. The section “Number of hands” in the previous version has been revised to “More than one simultaneous performer/Number of hands.” New sections include guidance for vocal range and gender, one player/multiple instruments, and using the terms orchestra, chamber orchestra, and instrumental ensemble.

The annual business meeting of the Cataloging and Metadata Committee will be held virtually on Thursday, March 9, 2023, 12:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m. CST. Please see the CMC agenda for the full agenda as well as links to reports. The reports will not be read in full at the meeting; guests are encouraged to read reports ahead of time and bring any questions or comments to the meeting. The meeting is open to all registered attendees of the Meeting of the Music Library Association and the Theatre Library Association. The Zoom link will be available in Sched, and the meeting will be recorded. Hermine Vermeij, Chair, Cataloging and Metadata Committee.