CMC Town Hall 2017
LCGFT/LCMPT Updates--Text
Casey A. Mullin (Western Washington University), Chair, Vocabularies Subcommittee
[title slide]
Good evening. I’m Casey Mullin, Chair of the MLA Vocabularies Subcommittee. I’m here to report to you recent updates in faceted vocabularies for music, specifically LCGFT (Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials) and LCMPT (Library of Congress Medium of Performance Terms for Music). The vocabularies themselves continue to grow and develop, as does the landscape of implementation in music cataloging (particularly in the United States).
[slide 2]
Since the initial release of 560 music terms in LCGFT in early 2015, MLA and the Library of Congress have continued work to build out and refine the vocabulary. During the past year, a large number of terms for dramatic music were added, among other useful terms.
[slide 3]
Of special interest to our Latin American colleagues, these terms in red are among the newest arrivals. LCGFT and LCMPT strive to be comprehensive thesauri amenable for describing musics from all over the world.
[slide 4]
On the docket for 2017 are a new suite of terms usable for describing texts that are associated with music, but that are embodied in resources that do not contain that music. Librettos is the existing term in LCGFT around which these additional terms will be added. Further, the hierarchy shown here is intended to accommodate additional terms for texts associated with other musical genres, which may be proposed as they are needed. Please note these new terms have not been approved yet, so are subject to change.
[slide 5]
Speaking of proposals, you’ve heard us state multiple times over the past 2 years that proposals for new and revised LCGFT music terms would not yet be accepted, since the developers of LCGFT still needed time to refine the initial build of the thesaurus. I’m pleased to report that this moratorium is now coming to an end. You may have already heard this at this conference. Please watch for further announcement about this in the coming weeks. Please also be advised that the SACO Music Funnel will be available to assist any of you who wish to formulate a proposal, so you can effectively navigate the research and justification requirements laid out by LC; we want your proposal to be a success!
[slide 6]
For catalogers who wish to implement these terms in day-to-day cataloging (and there are already many of you who do), the MLA Best Practices are available on the CMC website. Additionally, LC has issued a draft Genre/Form Terms Manual, which contains much valuable general information about how terms are assigned, as well as about how proposals should be formulated. Music-specific content has not been added here quite yet, and LC is evaluating MLA’s own best practices as a possible basis for this content.
[slide 7]
Turning now to LCMPT, these are the new and revised terms which have appeared over the past year. A number of these came out of VS projects, such as the clarinet term revisions and the new term “jazz combo.” Don’t ask me what a “spoils of war” is…
[slide 8]
In 2017, another VS project area for LCMPT development, dealing with electronics terms, is expected to be completed. The two terms here in red are new, and the remainder will have some kind of hierarchical adjustment or scope note adjustment.
[slide 9]
As for LCMPT proposals, a similar moratorium is currently in place for direct community proposals; LCMPT terms may be proposed now, but must be done through the SACO Music Funnel. Later this year, LC will release a new Medium of Performance Terms Manual, which we expect will incorporate MLA Best Practices to some degree. At some point after that, the moratorium on direct proposals will be lifted, so be on the lookout for that announcement in mid-2017. Just like with LCGFT, however, the SACO Music Funnel is available to assist you with your proposals at any time.
[slide 10]
MLA’s Best Practices for LCMPT are also available on the CMC website; the latest version there is only a week old! Among the changes incorporated in this new version are: 382 subfields $r and $t; expanded guidance on “bi-level” medium statements; expanded guidance on partial medium statements; and, clarification on polychoral situations.
[slide 11]
While these new faceted vocabularies are being implemented in new cataloging, the vision of a fully-faceted discovery environment for music will not be realized until a critical mass of legacy metadata is populated with these terms. To that end, VS has embarked upon a project,with Gary Strawn of Northwestern University, to programmatically generate faceted data from Library of Congress Subject Headings for music, as well as coded data in MARC bibliographic records. I expect that this time next year, we will be able to report the results of extensive testing and a framework for implementing the program on large-scale bibliographic databases such as OCLC WorldCat. ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee has also charged a working group to articulate the business case for performing such retrospective term assignment across all disciplines, an endeavor that requires significant buy-in from many stakeholders. Yours truly has been appointed to chair the group, and our white paper is due to SAC at ALA Annual in Chicago in June 2017. Stay tuned for more on that!
[slide 12]
Lastly, I will leave you with a shameless invitation to read the article that my colleagues Beth, Nancy and Hermine and I wrote chronicling this years-long endeavor, which is published in the current issue of Notes. Happy reading!
Thank you very much.