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AJL RAS 2020 Cataloging Committee Meeting Minutes 

March 3, 2021 | Zoom, 12:30-2pm EDT

Old Business

1.    Welcome, introductions (Neil, all)

• This is our first mid-year meeting, as the committee usually only meets at the annual conference.
  
• 2020 minutes approved. (They had been partially lost due to a computer crash but reconstructed.)

New Business

1.    Incoming coordinator of Hebrew NACO/BIBCO/SACO funnels (Neil, Heidi)

• Jasmin Shinohara will be the new coordinator. We thank Heidi Lerner for her great job and service to the community.
• May 1 is the official transition date, but Heidi and Jasmin will continue to collaborate.

2.    Patronymics in NARS (Haim, Aaron)

• Proposal to allow inclusion of patronymic in NARs regardless of the placement of the patronymic element (whether before the family name or elsewhere).
• Light discussion. Proposal approved. The HCM-RDA will need to be updated to reflect the relaxed parameters of formatting patronymic NARs.
• Discussion of updating HCM-RDA was postponed to the summer meeting.

3.    New class number schedule for History of Judaism by region or country (Marlene), presentation:

• The current History of Judaism by region or country schedule (BM201-449) allocates some sparsely populated countries with little Jewish presence a full class number, while other countries with longer and more complex Jewish community history have just one crowded cutter number under "Other European countries". This is especially problematic for countries like Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Hungary. The map schedule in some cases is obsolete, like in the case of Bukhara in Uzbekistan, also Russia (Northern Asia-Siberia) and former Ottoman Empire. Haim proposed that Marlene submit a proposal to the LC Policy Office for a revised schedule given her access to works that supply literary warrant for the changes. Heidi further elaborated on the call no. and subject proposal process.
  
• Cutters in Bible call numbers are also getting crowded.

• Marlene, Gabe, and Haim will form a task force to draft the proposal for re-working the crowded sections of LC class schedules for which there is literary warrant to substantiate such changes.
  

Other Business

1.     Discussion on the need to explore new avenues for succession planning so that younger generations can carry on the work that we Judaica/Hebraica Librarians do (Jasmin, Michelle and others). This may be a subject for discussion at this annual conference or future round-table discussions

2.     Upcoming RAS events:

• March 16th, 12:30 EST, De-mystifying cataloging (Haim): what do cataloger’s do, what is our process? Promoting what cataloging is and clarifying what it is not.
• May 26th, 12:30 EST, Intro to wikidata workshop (Neil)

• Pre-work if you want to participate in the hands-on part: create your own Wikidata account. Come with two examples of personal names you want to create on Wikidata (make sure they are not already there or that they only have poor records; you should have a short bio of the person, preferably based on an online resource such as a finding aid.

Future (2021 Summer) Business

1. Update on LC class schedule expansion proposal (Marlene, Gabe, Haim)

2. Updating HCM-RDA -- patronymics and other changes (Jasmin, Neal)

3. New RDA Toolkit's Community Resources section and the Judaica/Hebraica community (Ahava)

     a. What content should be in the section?

     b. Who should be responsible for it?

4. What constitutes "Sacred Works?" Should we have a list of such works (Heidi, Robert)

5. Use of Wikidata in creating NARs (Yossi)

     a. See: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page

     b. Example: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6560822

6. Christian bias in LCSH, Anglo-centric taxonomies, general bias in cataloging, reactions to the Cataloging Code of Ethics (Marlene, Neil) -- possibly a self-standing conference panel, proposed by Amalia

In attendance:  

Gabe Angulo, Brandeis, gangulo@brandeis.edu (Member)

Sharon Benamou, UCLA, benamou@library.ucla.edu

Jackie Ben-Efraim, AJU, j.benefraim@gmail.com

Michelle Chesner, Columbia, mc3395@columbia.edu, (AJL VP)
Ahava Cohen, NLI, ahava.cohen@nli.edu.il

Beth Dwoskin, U. of Michigan

Neil M. Frau-Cortes, UMd, nfrau@umd.edu (Chair)

Vanessa Freedman, University College London, v.freedman@ucl.ac.uk

Haim Gottschalk, LC, hgot@loc.gov (Member)

Margo Gutstein, Simon Wiesenthal Center, mgutstein@wiesenthal.com

Roger Kohn, LC, rkoh@loc.gov

Heidi Lerner, Stanford, lerner@stanford.edu

Amalia S. Levi, HeritEdge Connection, amalia@heritedge.foundation, (RAS president, Member, ex officio)
Elaine Mael, Baltimore Hebrew Institute Collection, Towson U., Maryland, EMael@towson.edu
Louis (Chaim) Meiselman, UPenn, lmei@upenn.edu
Yisrael Meyerowitz, LC, ymey@loc.gov

Caroline Miller, UCLA, crmiller@library.ucla.edu
Tarina Rosen, Emory, libtr@emory.edu

Dovid Roth, NLI, David.Roth@nli.org.il (Member)

Daniel Scheide, FAU, dscheide@fau.edu (Member)
Marlene Schiffman, Yeshiva U., schiffma@yu.edu

David Sheby, Ph.D. [retired] 

Jasmin Shinohara, U Penn., jshino@upenn.edu (Member)
Avrom Shuchatowitz, Yeshiva U., shuchatow@yu.edu
Rachel Simon, Princeton, rsimon@princeton.edu

Daniel Stuhlman, Temple Sholom Chicago, librarian@sholomchicago.org

Havva Zellner, JTSA, hazellner@JTSA.EDU

Minutes by Gabe Angulo

dscheide@fau.edu