sac-class: minutes from Boston Midwinter 2005

[Lori Robare <lrobare@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

Informal minutes from the meeting of the Joint Task Force on
Library of Congress Classification Training in Boston, January 16,
2005:

We talked about the draft charge (sent to the group on January 11) and
had no major concerns about the content or the timeline.  The charge
should be finalized soon.

Lori will set up an archived discussion list for the group and a simple
web page on which we can post draft documents.

This course will be part of the new Cooperative Cataloging Training (CCT)
program, a collaborative effort involving ALCTS, the PCC, and the
Cataloging Distribution Service.  Many elements of the program are
based on the SCCTP model, but there are some differences.  There is
more information about CCT here:
http://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/cct/index.html.

Regarding the format of the training materials to be developed, we will
follow the model of the other CCT courses: PowerPoint is used to create a
set of slides, an instructor's manual and a trainees' manual. 
Documents in other formats such as Word can also be incorporated (for
exercises, appendices).  CDS will give us some style
guidelines.  Lori shared some examples of material used in the Basic
Subject Cataloging Using LCSH course.

We talked about existing training materials on LC classification. 
We looked at a copy of the handouts Mary Kay Pietris used in a day-long
workshop in Oregon last year.  Bruce Trumble shared an outline and
notes from a session he did at Harvard that included a special focus on
the N schedule.  Task force members are encouraged to send Lori
examples of other such materials they have used in training, or samples
of course outlines used in other courses.   Where possible,
these will be posted to the web site.

Potential audience for the training: one of the goals of the CCT program
is to provide more training for catalogers in basic cataloging
skills.  We agreed that the target audience will be beginners and
that we will keep the material to a fairly basic level.  From our
experience so far, the CCT workshops attract professionals and
paraprofessionals, practitioners and managers.

The remainder of the meeting was a wide-ranging discussion of the content
and comprehensiveness of the LCC course.  Here is a summary of a few
of the issues and any conclusions that we reached -- in most cases, the
discussions will be continuing over email.

- Do we include shelfisting?  Most people felt that this was an
essential component of the course.  People will come to the workshop
expecting to gain this skill.  We will include it.

- Will we use the print schedules or Classification Web in the course
materials?  We need to incorporate both; we cannot make the
assumption that all attendees will have access to Classification
Web.  It was suggested that we use the print schedules more in the
earlier sessions and incorporate ClassWeb more in the later
sessions.
 
- Length of the course: we did not reach any conclusions on this. 
There are a number of one-day LCC workshops available from different
providers.  Some members expressed reservations about being able to
cover the desired content of a basic course in a single day.  One
reason for keeping it to a single day is that it is much more manageable
for attendees and organizers and may reach more people.  One
suggestion is to design the course in a very modular format, with a core
component focusing on concepts that are widely applicable throughout the
schedules, and numerous distinct sessions focusing on specific
schedules.  Workshop organizers could decide to host a single day
workshop or a day and a half.

- Ideas about topics that should be included in the course (not
comprehensive, and in no particular order): mechanics of cuttering;
historical context; tools (paper and online schedules, manuals);
principles and structure; discussion of other classification schemes;
subject analysis in general (how much detail in this course?); outline of
the schedules.

We discussed the fact that individual schedules have so many differences,
and how to approach this in the course.  It was suggested that we
begin by talking about common features of schedules, using some of the
more representative schedules, then follow this with a focus on specific
schedules and their unique features.  Suggestions for special focus
included: H, N, P-PZ, K-KZ, M, G.

One of our first tasks will be to draft the outline for the course. 
Once the discussion list is set up, Lori will encourage everyone to share
their ideas about this and get some possible approaches on paper so we
can move ahead.

Last item of business:  we have a placeholder meeting time scheduled
for Chicago: Sunday afternoon, 2:30-5:30.  Everyone is able to come
at the beginning, but some have to leave at 4:00.  We discussed the
possibility of changing the meeting to Monday morning or Friday afternoon
before 4:30.  Nothing was concluded, we'll discuss on the 
list.