Music Library Association Cataloging and Metadata Committee: Vocabularies Subcommittee (VS) Business Meeting 2022 Summary
Wednesday February 23, 2022, 11:30am – 12:55pm MST, via Zoom

Members present: Rebecca Belford (chair); Anne Adams; Joshua Aldorisio; Kristi Bergland; Ann Churukian; Patricia Falk; Mary Huismann; Beth Iseminger (SACO Music Funnel Coordinator); Leonard Martin; Allison McClanahan; Jennifer Olson; Mark Scharff (NACO-Music Project Coordinator); Tracey Snyder; Clare Spitzer; Maarja Vigorito (LC representative); Jay Weitz (OCLC representative). Approximately 40 guests.

Chair’s report (R. Belford)

ALA liaison reports

Written reports are on the CMC website: Summer (in lieu of Annual) 2021 and Midwinter 2022. The Core division business meetings are no longer held at ALA; this year’s reports are from the Subject Analysis Committee.

Core has switched to online interest group weeks, separate from the ALA meetings. They are not included in the reports because they are virtual and open to all. This year’s starts March 7, 2022.

Membership

• • New members from 2021-2022: Josh Aldorisio, Kristi Bergland, Clare Spitzer.
  • Departing members at the close of MLA meeting: Rebecca Belford, rotating off, and Leo Martin, incoming SACO Music Funnel Coordinator.
  • Reminder that there are openings on the subcommittee–please apply.

Types of Composition List Task Group (Patty Falk, TG coordinator)

• Written report submitted ahead; Falk summarized the routine work of the task group. Report and task group description appended below.
• Plural project (adding plurals for non-preferred generic/type terms): manual and list will need revision. Josh Henry (CMC webmaster) was present to discuss.
• Types Manual currently indicates that terms without plural are cognates (i.e., not to be used as types in authorized access points). Since they now will have a plural there needs to be a different way to identify which terms point to preferred English cognates.
• Types list: Lengthy discussion ensued on formatting and wording to ensure clarity and accessibility standards compliance. Question about why terms are in all caps: style sheet for website, not sure if we can customize for subpage without affecting other parts of MLA website. Options to clearly identify references include VARIANT (vs. current TYPE) or DO NOT USE. Discussion to be continue after the meeting.

Thematic Indexes List (MLATI) Task Group (Ann Churukian, TG coordinator)

• Written report submitted ahead; Churukian summarized the routine work of the task group. Report and task group description appended below.
• Q (Scharff): Could we URLs be included for indexes available online. A: They are already present (e.g. Senfl). Discussion followed on accessibility compliance.
• Also question on ability to view whole page vs each composer being separate page.
• From this discussion and Types, it is clear that a general review of headings, formatting, and accessibility standards compliance needed throughout the resources on the CMC site.

LCMPT/LCGFT Maintenance Task Group (Anne Adams, TG coordinator; Beth Iseminger, SACO Music Funnel Coordinator)

• Written report submitted ahead; Adams summarized the routine work of the task group. Report and task group description appended below.
• No specific terms brought to meeting for discussion; activity will continue on the CMC wiki.
• SACO Music Funnel Coordinator’s report included at full CMC business meeting and additional information in the Funnels meeting. B. Iseminger noted that there is a new SACO funnel page on the CMC site with improved instructions. Changeover in coordinator at close of MLA 2022 meeting: Leo Martin will be assuming the role. (Congrats to Leo and thank you to Beth!)
• Announcements/discussion:
  • Damian Iseminger: Comments on LC tentative lists from this group should be concise and focus on any objections to the term, definition, or hierarchy and why. There is no need to provide suggestions or solutions; LC will instruct the cataloger to revise proposal. Q (guest): If we think and alternative is obvious can we include it? A: Yes but not needed.
  • Maarja Vigorito: When crafting SACO proposals, it is essential to indicate in the first 670 (work cat) that the heading is needed.

Task Group on Deriving Faceted Terms from LCSH/Music Toolkit (Rebecca Belford, TG coordinator)

• Written report submitted ahead; Belford summarized the routine work of the task group. Report and description appended below.
• Reminder that the current version of the OCLC Music Toolkit now runs on more than just recorded and notated music type records. It does work in Client 3.0.
• Mapping catchup plan: discussion of semi-automated method vs. catchup up using back issues of MCBs in order to update the MLA mappings (also used in Strawn’s OCLC Music Toolkit) to current vocabularies. The subcommittee decided that it would not be unreasonable to divide up MCBs.
• MLA Board approved GitHub; will be a place we can make mapping documents available

LCMPT/LCGFT Best Practices Task Group (Mary Huismann, TG coordinator)

• Written report submitted ahead; Huismann summarized the routine work of the task group. Report and task group description appended below.
• Advance guidance on vocal terms drafted on CMC wiki. Discussion will continue on the wiki.

Core SSFV Q&A (Casey Mullin, SSFV Chair)

• Mullin gave an overview of the project plan (as an ‘integrating resource’ of sorts), “Retrospective Implementation of Faceted Vocabularies: Best Practices for Librarians and Programmers” and offered to field questions. Emphasized this work is to provide a modular approach. It is designed to collocate and pool learning by pointing to available implementation methods, encouraging testing and development. It does not include any actual programs/code/downloads.

New business

• Leo Martin (as incoming SACO coordinator): noted that Rap/Hip-hop set of proposals are on the list of terms to be worked out before Beth Iseminger rotates off. This will involve crossover with the vocabs maintenance group and the best practices group (e.g. to clarify that the presence of LCMPT “rapper” does not necessarily warrant applying the genre “Rap music” to a whole album).
• Additional CMC communication
  • Tracey Snyder: Could CMC send out summaries of music cataloging changes a couple of times per year for people not closely following music cataloging changes? A short list of essentials. This would be different from and in addition to the Music Cataloging Bulletin, CMC Town Hall, and the CMC blog.
  • Added suggestion from Thom Pease: consider Notes or a Twitter feed.
  • Consensus from chat that this should be free (i.e. not Notes).
  • Hermine Vermeij (CMC chair): noted that CMC already generates many reports. CMC will include this in discussion of next-year’s projects.

Close of meeting.
Coordinators’ task group reports follow.