Home--Minutes

AJL RAS Cataloging Committee Virtual Winter Meeting Minutes 

10 Feb. 2022, 11:30am-1pm EST  

Recording (with thanks to Jackie Benefraim): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O6UPfoSYWQ  

Old Business

1. Welcome (Neil)
2. Summer 2021 minutes were approved (Neil)

Continuing/New Business

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

• Continue discussion (a lot of issues with the migration, asked to discuss the substantive issues at April meeting of the RDA Steering Committee);
• There will continue to be ways for various (language, subject, etc.) communities, whether in Community Resources or elsewhere, to create best practices and share them in the Toolkit;
• HCM-RDA is already in the Toolkit
• Expect the format will be HTML pages but hope to know more this summer.

          2. Romanization: updates on Dicta automation and other projects (Ahava and others)

• In-house Dicta rep. had to leave NLI, however, almost ready to run a trial in the catalog;
• One outstanding item is a list of approx. 2000 words that might possibly need a prefix hyphen in ALA-LC romanization;
• Hoping that the American and/or British community can go through this list and provide the standard romanization;
• This information will be fed back into Dicta to update the program;
• Jasmin asked: Will Dicta also romanize or only vocalize? Ahava responded: Dicta will vocalize and then use the ALA-LC table to romanize what they vocalize; if there are errors will need to look at whether the source is the romanization table or because of incorrect vocalization.

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

• Ahava has a list from NLI, which she will post to Heb-NACO for contributions and comments
• the list is based on a uniform list of Judaica and is based off of the Israeli Authority file (מז"ל = Mazal); Ahava started the list (unfinished), trying to get the equivalent in LC and Wikidata;
• Neil put the list in a Google doc; gave committee members permission to comment, but not edit.
• Jasmin commented: The list includes liturgical works; RDA has an intentional split between sacred and liturgical works. Ahava responded: The list is not based on RDA, but based on what was needed in NLI’s catalog with respect to x30 fields. David Roth will be the person to talk to since he is on the RDA Working Group on Religion. It was helpful to start with the combined list of works and proceed from there.
• Yossi asked: Will the headings be put into Wikidata? Ahava responded: Yes.

          4. Inclusion of patronymic in NARs regardless of the placement of the patronymic element/Updating HCM-RDA (Jasmin, Neil) 

• Jasmin notes that the bigger issue is updating the manual to reflect the decision made in previous meetings. There have been other changes, but HCM-RDA updates wait while RDA is still being actively edited. Ahava addded that a major change in RDA is removing Christian bias as much as possible. (Base RDA didn’t change much).
• Yossi asked: Are we now adding names of fathers in rabbinic names? Jasmin responded: Yes, going forward. Haim filled in the background to the decision (made in the Winter 2021 meeting): If the name appears as both "X ben Y last name" and as "X last name ben Y", for the sake of consistency and for differentiation, we now include the patronymic in the authorized access point.
• Yossi asked: If we have dates, do we still need to add the father’s name? Jasmin responded: The father’s name is added to the access point when there is no other point of differentiation. Yossi then added that dates are still the preferred way of differentiation, but it is wise to put it in at least note the patronymic elsewhere in the record. Jasmin added that the patronymic name is added to variant forms if not needed to break conflict in the access point. David said NLI always adds father’s name regardless, in order to avoid conflict down the line. Jasmin responded that a NACO principle is not to predict conflict.
• Neil volunteered to help with updating HCM-RDA from a static PDF to a more linked document.

          5. Update on BM201-449 class schedule expansion (Haim, Marlene, Gabe)

• Haim discussed the 4 proposals made for Hungary; all 4 were denied because there's already an existing number in use. Gabe asked if we could appeal. Haim responded that it will be possible due to the change in Policy Office staff. Haim explained the difficulty in revising the schedule.
• Lenore recommended that we harness the collective power of the group and make the case, especially where collections in other libraries (outside of LC) have extensive Judaica collections. We need to make a case from the perspective of other libraries.
• Gabe recommends that to help make the case we include the proposed changes to the schedule.
• Haim answered that we should revisit within a year.
• Lenore requested a meeting to meet the new Policy Office staff.

          6. Cancellation of Marranos as a subject heading (Nahid, Haim)

• Marranos was canceled and replaced by Crypto Jews – Iberian Peninsula! Haim talked about how the new term was selected and issues with replacing the heading.

          7. Feedback on the Cataloging Forum (Neil and all)

• Gabe said that he is interested in leading a session.

          8. Helping libraries that have a Hebraica/Judaica collection but no cataloger (Haim)

Future Business

          1. Update on BM201-449 class schedule expansion

          2. Vacancies and how to train new catalogers

In attendance

Gabe Angulo (Huntington)

Sharon Benamou (UCLA)

Jackie Benefraim (AJU)

Lenore Bell (USHMM)

Ahava Cohen (NLI)

Jerry Anne Dickel (Yale)

Neil Frau-Cortes (Broward County, FL)

Vanessa Freedman (Univ. College London)

Yossi Galron-Goldschlager (OSU)

Nahid Gerstein (LC)

Haim Gottschalk (LC)

Ari Kleinman (Brandeis)

Konstanze Kunst (Yale)

Mirit Lerner Naaman (JTS)

Rita Lifton (JTS)

Caroline Miller (UCLA)

David Roth (NLI)

Tarina Rosen (Emory)

Daniel Scheide (FAU)

Marlene Schiffman (YU)

Jasmin Shinohara (UPenn)

Avrom Shuchatowitz (YU)

Rachel Simon (Princeton)

Bob Talbott (UC Berkeley)

Draft by Haim Gottschalk