About the BIBCO Music Funnel

All interested music catalogers are invited to consider membership in the newly established BIBCO Music Funnel. The BIBCO Music Funnel was approved by the MLA Board and the PCC Secretariat in 2015, and is intended to provide a way to increase participation in BIBCO for music subject specialists, and to increase the number of BIBCO records created for scores and sound recordings. The BIBCO Music Funnel, NACO-Music Project, and the MLA Cataloging and Metadata Committee collaborate on cataloging issues of interest to the music community. The BIBCO Music Funnel Coordinator is Linda Blair ().

For those who may not be familiar with the program, BIBCO is one of the branches of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), which also includes NACO (authority records), CONSER (serials) and SACO (subject heading authority records). BIBCO members contribute high-quality bibliographic records, conforming to the Bibliographic Standard Record (BSR), in which all access points are supported by authority work. A BIBCO funnel is a group of libraries organized around a subject specialty, geographic location or consortium membership that work together to contribute BIBCO records. The funnel also coordinates training and review in the area of specialization.

The formation of the Music Funnel provides an avenue for current and new BIBCO contributors to join a subject specialist community which will provide training and support in creation of BIBCO records for scores and sound recordings. The funnel also allows members to communicate easily with others in the BIBCO Music community, sharing information and solving problems together. Contributors to BIBCO funnels are not required to submit a minimum number of records, thus enabling institutions of varying size to participate. Institutions which are currently independent BIBCO contributors are also invited to have their music specialists join the funnel.

Current BIBCO libraries:

Procedures and reporting for current BIBCO contributors who join the funnel will remain the same. Current BIBCO participants will continue to contribute records as independent members and are free to train new catalogers at their own institutions to participate in the program with no intervention from the Music Funnel. However, we hope current BIBCO members will want to participate as part of the community, sharing information on our listserv, sharing your contact information in our directory and volunteering to serve as reviewers for new members.

New BIBCO members:

Institutions with no previous BIBCO experience may join the BIBCO Music Funnel to contribute music records, even if no other subject catalogers at the institution wish to participate. There is no requirement to submit a minimum number of records; the only requirements are NACO independence in names and name-titles, preferably through the NACO-Music Project. Music catalogers who are interested in being part of the funnel will be matched with BIBCO-independent reviewers having music cataloging expertise.

Funnel statistics:

The BIBCO Program will no longer collect funnel statistics. All statistics will be reported through the individual institutions rather than through the funnel. Therefore, Music Funnel members whose institutions are full BIBCO members will continue to report their statistics through their institutions as they always have. Libraries that join as new members through the funnel will also report their statistics through their own institutions, even if the number of records is small.

Review and independence:

New members will be assigned a reviewer by the Funnel Coordinator. If there are several music catalogers at the institution under review, a BIBCO contact person at that institution will forward all records to the reviewer. The contact person will review all records locally for obvious errors and will try to have each cataloger send approximately 20 records over the course of the review. Guidelines for review as stated in the BIBCO Participant’s Manual, 3rd edition, call for the participating institution or individual to produce 80-100 records, or a quantity sufficient to assure consistent high quality. The records may be either new or existing records that have been upgraded to BIBCO standards.

To join:

Please fill out and submit a Membership Information Form, available here:

All new members will also need to fill out the PCC BIBCO membership application, available here: http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/bibco/application.html.

If you are already contributing BIBCO music records, you do not need to submit the PCC form.

Please contact Linda Blair, BIBCO Music Funnel Coordinator with any questions: , 585-274-1368

Some of the products of our new venture include:

  • A website dedicated to BIBCO music issues, which will include information for new members, but also eventually will include links to useful information for music catalogers and shared tools, such as workflows and checklists developed by member libraries.
  • A listserv to share information concerning cataloging for BIBCO, as well as a forum for questions related to the process of joining the BIBCO program.
  • A directory modelled after the NACO Music Project directory, showing all participating catalogers and the contact person at each institution, and which formats they are cataloging in the BIBCO program. This will enable us to share information more efficiently, as well as to match reviewers and reviewees.

For more information see:

The PCC BIBCO Program

BIBCO Funnels