The PCC and Me

 

This blog post comes from Martha Rice Sanders, Senior Consultant at Innovative

As someone who began cataloging in my infancy, well, early 20s, performing copy cataloging of musical sound recordings at the University of Illinois, I have dreamed of participating in the PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging). “PCC members contribute high quality records and subject proposals conforming to approved standards” with four programs:

  • BIBCO (monographic cataloging)
  • SACO (serials cataloging)
  • NACO (name authorities)
  • SACO (subject authorities)

Although my work responsibilities precluded my direct participation while working in libraries for nearly four decades, I benefited from the PCC’s many educational programs and its members’ work to promote “useful, timely, and cost-effective cataloging that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world.”

Now, as a member of Innovative’s Consulting and Educational Services team, I have attended the last two PCC meetings at the Library of Congress and am reading the posts to PCC’s listserv. The PCC community is doing really exciting work with linked data, exploring how it can get our collections and services out into the Web, but also how we can use linked data to enrich the discovery experience within our user communities.

Participation in the PCC has informed the creation of two new Innovative workshops, or ‘boot camps’, I am leading – Metadata and Cataloging Essentials (for the Accidental Cataloger). For Cataloging Essentials, I’ve included what I learned about various PCC projects, such as the one to eliminate some ISBD punctuation, and some of the education materials created by the PCC. For Metadata, I’ve been soaking up information about linked data, URIs, RWOs, BIBFRAME, and our exciting metadata future.

I love sharing what I’m learning and hope you’ll consider registering for the Authority Control workshop in July, or December, the Metadata Bootcamp in September or  Cataloging Essentials in November. Or why not join me for our our free (!) July Hot Topic on Metadata Transformation Basics? Have more specialized needs? Innovative will be happy to create a custom consultation on what you most want to learn. Just ask!