Classification and Subject Cataloging Policy Advisory Working Group

The CSCPAWG met at 7:30 this morning. Thanks to the Serials Committee for sharing their coffee! We opened with a discussion of the Genre/Form Editorial Group's recent trip to meet with the PSD of LC's ABA (formerly known as CPSO)to discussion the Editorial Group's draft of the Legal Genre/Form terms. Issues resolved at the meeting include:

• Editorial Group will submit proposals to remove form terms from LCSH, essentially by changing scope notes.
  
• Since 185s ($v's) wil be around for the forseeable future, the EG will submit proposals to harmonize 185 terms with the proposed 155 (G/F) terms. (It was interesting that LC said that the trend is to make 185s as generic as possible - i.e. maps, not maps, topographic.)
• EG will submit proposals to change inverted 150 headings to direct order for terms in which the direct order term matches an inverted order 150 --i.e. there is a G/F term Legislative bills. EG will submit a proposal to change the 150 Bills, legislative to Legislative bills.
• EG should make no attempt to cross reference the G/F terms to Subject Headings -- the two thesauri are seen as different species which should not interact.
• It's okay to add terms which for us will only be archival -- i.e. Wills, Contracts -- but we should consult with the rare book people in doing so.
• We are allowed to include some non-legal terms (i.e. Periodicals) as they are needed for our reference structures. It was recognized that it was not realistic that we have a thesaurus without including some general terms.
• PSD approved of the EG's balance of common/civil law and terms as used by various groups -- catalogers, reference librarians, practitioners, students, lay people.
• There was some discussion of specific terms which resulted in some terms being bumped up to the general list, one dropped (Fiction (Law)), new references added.
• It was a very positive and helpful discussion, and left the Editorial Group with a clear picture of what to do to complete their work on the list.

Additional discussion at the CSCPAWG meeting included

• Gabe Horchler at LC Law Library Cataloging is very focussed on getting materials out (40,000 title last year). They don't want to jeopardize that progress. They are worried that applying the terms may slow then down.
• We should attempt to contact catalogers at IFLA and see what they think of the list. John Hostage and George Praeger are both going to IFLA and can take it with them.
• Implementation should be by machine as much as possible. Yael Mandelstam intends to start figuring out ways to add them to her catalog and is willing to share ways that work. We agree that they will be of little use unless applied retroactively to the whole collection.
• A cooperative project -- Perhaps AALL libraries could add them through some kind of cooperative effort on OCLC?
• Formats (i.e. electronic resources) are NOT included in new list -- that will be handled through RDA.

The second topic of discussion was what to do with the International Criminal Court, and with the developing concept of international crimes -- including, so far, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression, and possibly expanding to include crimes against social and cultural interests. Currently the ICC is in KZ, the crimes are scattered throughout K and also the individual jurisdictions. Jolande and Marie proposed developing an international crimes section at the end of KZ which would include both the ICC and theoretical discussion of various international crimes. Jolande will prepare a mockup of what the schedule might look like. We will look at our collections and see what we think about this in the contexts of our own libraries.