Annual Report, July 1, 2020-June 30, 2021

Submitted by: Karen A. Peters, Chair

Group Name: Encoding Standards Subcommittee

Special Offices: MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) Liaison, [RDA/MARC Working Group member, music specialist (by virtue of MAC Liaison position)]. Regarding the CORE Metadata Interest Group (MIG), please see below under Additional Activities.

Group Members

• Karen Peters (Chair, 2019-2023)
• Jim Alberts (2023)
• Ethan D’Ver (2023)
• Matt Ertz (2021)
• Chelsea Hoover (2022)
• Rahni Kennedy (2023)
• Anna Alfeld LoPrete (2025)
• Jeff Lyon (2024)
• Felicia Piscitelli (2021)
• Tomoko Shibuya (2022)
• Amy Strickland (2022)
• Laura Thompson (2025)
• Damian Iseminger (LC Representative)
• Jay N. Weitz (OCLC Representative)

Previous Goals

1. Continue to monitor and participate in MARC development—particularly in light of pending implementation of official RDA (expected July 2022)–and communicate any needs for best practices or other documentation to help music catalogers implement changes to MARC (Goal area: Value of the Profession)
   • The Chair served as MLA’s representative to the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC), attending the MAC meetings held virtually January 26-28, 2021 and June 28-30, 2021. Prior to these meetings, the Chair solicited comments from the ESS and CMC membership regarding the proposals and discussion papers to be presented at the meetings, and drafted MLA’s (initial) response to these papers for submission to MAC in preparation for the meetings.
   • The Chair continued to participate in the work of the MARC/RDA Working Group (MRWG), representing the music community, if not (strictly speaking) MLA specifically. Over the past year, the MRWG drafted and presented 2 proposals and a discussion paper at the January 2021 MAC meetings, as well as a proposal and 3 discussion papers at the June 2021 MAC meetings. One of the papers considered at the June meetings, MARC Discussion Paper No. 2021-DP12, examined potential methods of encoding RDA Representative Expression information in MARC, a matter that will significantly impact the music community once official RDA is adopted.
   • The Chair and ESS members Tomoko Shibuya and Amy Strickland have remained available to participate as needed in the CSS-led RDA/MARC Task Group formed to assist the Chair in her work on the MRWG. During the year, the assistance and support of the RDA/MARC Task Group was solicited by the Chair in connection with work on the above-referenced 2021-DP12, resulting in significant changes to that discussion paper.
   • In October 2020, the Chair submitted a Fast-Track Proposal, MARC Proposal No. 2020-FT03, “Adding Subfields $0 and $1 to Field 384 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats” to the MARC Steering Group for approval. The proposal, which resulted from an email discussion initiated by Adam Schiff (University of Washington), sought approval of a method of encoding musical key in a linked data-friendly manner. Adam, who had recently drafted similar proposals, offered to draft the proposal for us, an offer that we gratefully accepted. After ESS veted and submitted the proposal, it was approved by the MARC Steering Group and subsequently incorporated into the MARC formats with the publication of MARC Update No. 31 in December 2020.
   • In November 2020, Jodi Williamschen (NDMSO) requested ESS’s comments on issues related to a MARC discussion paper she was drafting that sought to permit encoding of Capture and Storage Technique to MARC field 344, which would permit the use of controlled and linkable terms for the purpose. In the course of doing so, ESS also suggested revisions to the definitions of Capture and Storage Technique used for MARC field 007. ESS’s comments were subsequently reflected in 2 discussion papers considered at the January 2021 MAC meetings: Discussion Paper No. 2021-DP04: Defining a New Subfield for Original Sound Capture and Storage in Field 344 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format; and Discussion Paper No. 2021-DP05: Terms and Definitions in Field 007/13 for Sound Recordings in the MARC21 Bibliographic Format.
   • The specific goal (in the ESS 2019-2020 Annual Report) of converting MARC Discussion Paper No. 2020-DP12 into a proposal was successfully accomplished with the drafting and submission of MARC Proposal 2021-05, “Renaming Field 348 and Defining New Subfields for Form of Musical Notation in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.” The proposal, which sought to permit the encoding of RDA Form of Musical Notation in MARC through the use of linkable, controlled terms, was presented by the Chair and approved by the MAC membership during the January 2021 MAC meetings. The proposed changes were subsequently incorporated into the MARC formats with the publication of MARC Update No. 32 in June 2021.
   • In April 2021, the Chair submitted another Fast-Track Proposal, “Modifying the Definition of Serial Number in Field 383 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats” to the MARC Steering Group. The need for the proposal, which was drafted by the Chair and vetted by ESS, was brought to our attention by Rebecca Belford, who noticed that the definition of Serial Number in MARC field 383, subfield $a had never been changed to align with the practice recommended several years earlier by LC-PCC Policy Statement for (original) RDA 6.16.1.3.1. The MARC Steering Group approved the proposal as an editorial change that was subsequently incorporated into the MARC formats with the publication of MARC Update No. 32 in June 2021.
   • In April 2021, ESS was given the opportunity by Jay Weitz to comment on a draft of a discussion paper he was writing on behalf of OCLC for consideration at the June 2021 MAC meetings. The paper was ultimately submitted as MARC Discussion Paper No. 2021-DP08, “Cleaning Up Redundancies Related to Fields 34X in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.”
   • In May 2021, ESS was given the opportunity by Jodi Williamschen to comment on a draft of a proposal she was writing on behalf of NDMSO that grew out of No. 2021-DP05, itself drafted subsequent to our commentary back in November (please see above), for consideration at the June 2021 MAC meetings. ESS ended up redrafting the paper’s proposed definitions, resulting in significant changes to the final paper, which was submitted as MARC Proposal No. 2021-15, “Updates to Definitions in 007/13 for Sound Recordings in the MARC21 Bibliographic Format.” Both this paper and the revision of No. 2021-DP04 mentioned above, which was submitted as MARC Proposal No. 2021-14, “Defining a New Subfield for Original Sound Capture and Storage in Field 344 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format,” were approved by MAC at the June 2021 meetings and will be incorporated into the MARC Update No. 33 in (presumably) December 2021. Please note that these changes proposed by NDMSO are among a number of changes intended to assist in conversions between MARC and BIBFRAME.
2. Continue the work of the Metadata for Music Resources Task Group on the updating and redesign of the Metadata for Music Resources site (Goal areas: Value of the Profession, Technology)
   • Over the course of Fall 2020, the Metadata for Music Resources (MMR) Task Group (members: Ethan D’Ver (Leader), Chelsea Hoover, Amy Strickland, Tomoko Shibuya) completed the design of its usability test and opened it for participation. The finalized design consisted of three components: a preliminary questionnaire, in the form of a multiple-choice survey, to find out participants’ familiarity with the MMR, as well as the kinds of positions they have and data they work with; a card sort activity, in which participants were asked to create categories to sort a sample set of 18 resources from the MMR; and a concluding comments section, in which participants could provide any additional feedback as free text. After publishing the test, the Task Group solicited responses by reaching out to the members of CMC, as well as putting out calls for participation on MLA-L and MOUG-L.
   • In early 2021, the Task Group conducted a preliminary analysis of the data and compiled the key points into a report which the Task Group Leader presented at the ESS business meeting at MLA 2021. After the conference, the usability test was left open until May 2021, at which point all of the available data was downloaded and the test was taken down.
3. Continue and conclude the work of the MARC Cataloging Inefficiency Task Group (Goal area: Value of the Profession)
   • The Music Cataloging Inefficiency (MCI) Task Group (members: Jim Alberts, Janice Bunker (CSS representative), Ethan D’Ver, Matt Ertz (through MLA 2021; Leader), Anna Alfeld LoPrete, Jeff Lyon, Leo Martin (VS representative after MLA 2021), Jennifer Olsen (VS representative through MLA 2021), Karen Peters, Felicia Piscitelli (through MLA 2021), Laura Thompson) continued but was unable to conclude its work during the year. Subsequent to previous discussions, the Task Group began drafting its survey of MARC cataloging redundancies in Fall 2020 under Matt Ertz’s leadership. In January 2021, the survey was finalized to include 7 such redundancies and distributed. Matt subsequently compiled the data and wrote a report that he presented at the ESS business meeting in mid-March. Given the time frame, however, there was no opportunity for the other members of the Task Group to evaluate and weigh in on the data collected and so the report can only be considered preliminary; thus recommendations as to further actions to be taken could not be made by the end of the year covered by this report.
4. Pending future LDWG activity, involve ESS in operationalizing elements of the Performed Music Ontology within BIBFRAME (Goal area: Value of the Profession)
   • Goal continues to be on hold: LDWG activity appropriate for ESS participation is still pending.

Additional activities

1. The Chair submitted reports of all MAC meetings attended in June/July 2020 and January 2021, as well as (briefly) on some of the meetings she would have attended on MLA’s behalf at ALA conferences (LC BIBFRAME updates, OCLC linked data), for publication in the Music Cataloging Bulletin. She also delivered a brief report at the (virtual) CMC Town Hall during MLA 2021.
2. Rahni Kennedy continues to serve as ESS’s representative to the Music Discovery Requirements ongoing revision recommendations project. Felicia Piscitelli did the same until she finished her ESS term in 2021; a replacement for her has not yet been found. Rahni also serves as ESS representative to the Vocabularies Subcommittee’s Deriving Faceted Music Terms (“Toolkit”) Task Group.
3. Please note that the Chair has served as MLA’s liaison to the ALCTS (now CORE) Metadata Interest Group (MIG) in the past. Since the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic and exclusion from ALA conference programming (and possibly the absorption of ALCTS into CORE?), the MIG has not held a business meeting or requested a liaison report, and when questioned by the Chair, has shown no inclination to do so. The MIG has, however, continues to be active, and has continued to sponsor virtual sessions under CORE’s auspices during this period. At this time, then, it is unclear whether or not a liaison relationship with MIG is appropriate, or even possible.

Future Goals

1. Continue to monitor and participate in MARC development—particularly in light of pending implementation of official RDA (expected July 2022)–and communicate any needs for best practices or other documentation to help music catalogers implement changes to MARC (Goal area: Value of the Profession)
2. In Fall 2021, the Metadata for Music Resources Task Group plans to further analyze the results of its usability test and come up with a set of specific recommendations for revising the MMR website. The Task Group will then work with MLA’s Web Editor to implement these changes in late 2021/early 2022, with the goal of having the new and improved MMR ready to present at MLA 2022. (Goal areas: Value of the Profession, Technology)
3. Conclude the work of the MARC Cataloging Inefficiency Task Group; alternatively, if justified, pursue further work in this area (Goal area: Value of the Profession)
4. Pending future LDWG activity, involve ESS in operationalizing elements of the Performed Music Ontology within BIBFRAME (Goal area: Value of the Profession)

Please note that all of these goals contribute to MLA’s mission to ensure and enhance intellectual access to music for all by contributing to the development and revision of national and international codes, formats, and other standards for the bibliographic control of music.