ALCTS Network News v6n15 (December 10, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/ann/ann-v6n15 ISSN: 1056-6694 ALCTS NETWORK NEWS An electronic publication of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services Volume 6, Number 15 December 10, 1993 In this issue ALA CANCELS CINCINNATI MIDWINTER MEETING PRESENTATIONS ON THE MUSIC THESAURUS PROJECT AND THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE THESAURUS AT MIDWINTER ALA NOMINATING COMMITTEE SEEKS CANDIDATES LAMA JOINS CNI; FORMS DISCUSSION GROUP ************************************************************************** ALA CANCELS CINCINNATI MIDWINTER MEETING The ALA will not hold its 1995 Midwinter Meeting in Cincinnati because of a recent amendment to the city's Human Rights Ordinance barring the City Council from enforcing laws that give legal protection to lesbian, gay or bisexual citizens. The action to move the Midwinter Meeting was taken on Tuesday, November 30, by the ALA Executive Board. "The board action continues ALA's long tradition of support for equal rights and intellectual freedom," said ALA President Hardy R. Franklin. "We feel the passage of Issue 3 in Cincinnati violates basic human rights issues." Paul Graller, ALA conference services director, said that the Association will be liable for an estimated $200,000 in hotel contracts with the Cincinnati cancellation. But, Franklin said, "You can't put a price tag on human rights. The issue is not special rights for a few but equal rights for all." The amendment, approved on November 2, removes "sexual orientation" from a 15-page document that prohibits unlawful discriminatory practices in Cincinnati based on "race, gender, age, color, religion, disability status, marital status and ethnic, national or Appalachian origin." The Human Rights Ordinance was signed into law on November 25, 1992. The Board cited two policies as a basis for its actions. ALA Policy 54.17 reaffirms the Association's "support for equal employment opportunity for gay librarians and library workers." ALA Policy 54.3 states that the Association "is committed to equality of opportunity for all library employees or applicants for employment, regardless of age, color, creed, sex, age, physical or mental handicap, individual life-style, or national origin." The annual ALA Midwinter Meeting draws some 10,000 participants. The cities of Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., are currently under consideration as alternate sites. ************************************************************************* PRESENTATIONS ON THE MUSIC THESAURUS PROJECT AND THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE THESAURUS AT MIDWINTER The Cataloging and Classification Section SAC Subcommittee on the Music Thesaurus Project is charged to facilitate communication among ALA members regarding the progress and direction of the music thesaurus project (MTP), and to serve as a source of cooperation and support between the ALA community and the MTP, including among its activities: preparing information and discussion sessions at ALA meetings, acting as liaison with other ALA units in consultation with MTP during the preliminary stages of its development and testing, and providing a larger community forum as a counterbalance to the inevitably limited viewpoint of the music specialists. The Subcommittee is also charged to investigate the need for and usefulness of projects like the MTP and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) for other subject areas, especially looking into principles and methods of construction and evaluation, capacity to support faceted indexing, and the use of terms from the AAT and proposed MTP in MARC records. To accomplish this charge, in part, the Subcommittee is presenting two extensive reports on recent relevant developments intended to be of interest not only to persons working in the fields of art and music, but to all types of information professionals concerned with bringing modern concepts of classification theory and thesaurus construction into the world of bibliographic data and specifically into the ever-expanding, multifaceted MARC database. These presentations will be given at the Subcommittee's first meeting at Midwinter in Los Angeles on Saturday, Feb. 5, from 9:30-11:00 in Theatre I of the Sheraton Grande. Building the Music Thesaurus --presented by Harriette Hemmasi, Music Technical Services Librarian, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. In response to a need expressed by fellow music librarians and other information professionals, Harriette Hemmasi, collaborating with James D. Anderson and Fred Rowley, began work on the music thesaurus in 1991. With funding from the Council on Library Resources, a computer database in thesaurus format was created from over 12,000 Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH) for music. The Library of Congress headings have been decoordinated and individual terms have been sorted into several broad tentative facets. These terms will serve as the base vocabulary for the music thesaurus. The current work of the project is focused on building the hierarchical structures for two facets: forms/genres and sound devices. Hemmasi will demonstrate the enhanced access to the LCSH for music provided by the thesaurus-like database, and she will display the temporary structure of the music thesaurus. She will discuss the progress and problems she has encountered in her work thus far and will assess the project's future work and its possible impact. Applying the Art and Architecture Thesaurus --presented by Toni Petersen, Director, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Williamstown, Mass. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus is publishing its complete set of hierarchies in February 1994. Many cataloging organizations, principally archives, special collections, museums, and visual materials collections, have been using the AAT since the first edition was published in 1990. Some of these applications are in the MARC format and these user communities have little difficulty in applying AAT terms. Library catalogers are restrained by their adherence to LCSH indexing principles and by the difficulties or inability of adding AAT terms to bibliographic records. This presentation explains the steps the AAT has taken to map their terms to LCSH, and discusses the use of multiple thesauri in the MARC format. It will also discuss the results of a project with the Victoria and Albert Museum's National Art Library, which carried out automated mapping of entire precoordinated topical subject headings in the 690 field and reconstituted them into faceted index headings in the 654 field. This project could have implications for the extension of mapping of multiple thesauri in the MARC format as well as enhancing the usefulness of older indexing techniques in bibliographic catalogs of the future. ************************************************************************* ALA NOMINATING COMMITTEE SEEKS CANDIDATES The ALA Nominating Committee is seeking candidates for the offices of president/president-elect and councilor-at-large for the spring 1995 elections. The winning presidential candidate will begin serving as vice president/president-elect at the conclusion of the 1995 ALA Annual Conference and as president at the conclusion of the 1996 Annual Conference. Councilors will serve four-year terms beginning at the close of the 1995 Annual Conference through the end of the 1999 Annual Conference. According to Norman Horrocks, chair of the 1995 ALA Nominating Committee, no fewer than 50 ALA personal members may be nominated for Council seats in accordance with ALA by-laws. Nominations should reach the committee on or before February 1, 1994, for consideration at the committee's meeting during the 1994 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Los Angeles. Nominations, accompanied by a brief resume, should be sent to one of the following persons: Norman Horrocks, Chair, 1995 ALA Nominating Committee, Scarecrow Press, P.O. Box 4167, Metuchen, N.J. 08840; Lydia Acosta, Merl Kelce Library, 401 W. Kennedy Blvd., University of Tampa, Tampa, FL 33606-1450; Wayne Crocker, Petersburg Public Library, 137 So. Sycamore St., Petersburg, VA 23803-4257; Marva L. DeLoach, Library Consultant, 1655 Arlington Blvd., El Cerrito, CA 94530-2004; Danilo H. Figueredo, Bloomfield College Library, 467 Franklin St., Bloomfield, N.J. 07003-4898; William A. Gosling, University of Michigan Libraries, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205; Lorrie M. Monprode-Holt, Montana Office of Public Instruction Resource Center, P.O. Box 203501, Helena, MT 59620-2501; Sally C. Tseng, University of California-Irvine Library, P.O. Box 19557, Irvine, CA 92713, or Evie Wilson-Lingbloom, Mill Creek Library, 15429 Bothell Everett Highway, Mill Creek, WA 98012. ************************************************************************* LAMA JOINS CNI; FORMS DISCUSSION GROUP In an action approved by the board of directors of the Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA) during the 1993 Annual Conference in New Orleans, LAMA, a division of ALA, has joined the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). "LAMA, by virtue of its leadership role in the library community, must examine and determine its position regarding the issues surrounding the management of networked information," said LAMA President Carol Liu. "By becoming a member of CNI, LAMA is both affirming association leadership in this arena and affirming the importance of networked information in the shifting paradigm of library administration." Jim Neal, LAMA past president and dean of University Libraries at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Jacqueline Zelman, director of University Computer Services, Florida International University, Coconut Grove, will serve as LAMA representatives to CNI. The LAMA Board of Directors also approved the formation of the LAMA Networked Information Discussion Group. It was developed to provide a forum to discuss management and public policy issues and to further a mutually beneficial relationship between LAMA, its members and the CNI. The group will meet for the first time during the 1994 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Los Angeles on Monday, February 7, from 8:30am to 11am in the LA Convention Center, Room 503. CNI, founded in March 1990 as a partnership of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), CAUSE and EDUCOM, is dedicated to promoting the creation of and access to high performance networks and computers for the advancement of scholarship and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. A 180-member task force, comprised of organizations and institutions, provides focus and resources critical to the ability of the Coalition to articulate and explore shared visions of how information management must change in the 1990s to meet the social and economic opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ALCTS NETWORK NEWS (ISSN 1056-6694) is published irregularly by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. Editorial offices: ALCTS, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; Jennifer Younger, President; Karen Muller, Executive Director. Editor: Karen Whittlesey (u34261@uicvm); Editorial Advisory Board: Liz Bishoff, Jennifer Younger, Robert P. Holley; Editorial Assistance: Karen Muller, Yvonne McLean. ALCTS NETWORK NEWS is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the division. News items should be sent to the editor at the e-mail address above. To subscribe, issue the network command "tell listserv@uicvm sub alcts [your name]." Back issues of AN2 are available through the listserver. To find out what's available, send the following command to LISTSERV@UICVM: send alcts filelist Send questions about membership in ALCTS to the ALCTS Office, u34261@uicvm. 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