Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Dear PCC Participants:

Recently it was reported in Punxsutawney that my dear friend Phil, Seer
of Seers, King of the Groundhogs, and Prognosticator of Prognosticators,
was allegedly said to have seen his shadow.   Phil recently returned
from the warm and sunny 2004 ALA Midwinter meeting where librarians were
rewarded with suntans, no shadows, and enjoyable PCC meetings.  Of
particular delight was the semi-annual PCC Participants' Meeting held
(as usual) in the Sunday night time slot.  The summary for that meeting
is now available online at:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/pccpart04m.html.  Highlights include
the Program's annual reports, the reports of the three Standing
Committeees, activities of the PCC Steering Committee, as well as the
description of PCC Contribution Review Model
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/umdassess.pdf that was undertaken at
the University of Maryland.

The BIBCO-Ar-Large meeting event is summarized and available at:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibco/bibcoatlarge04m.html .  The meeting
featured Robert O. Ellett, Jr., catalog librarian at the Joint Forces
Staff College (JFSC) in Norfolk, Va., presenting his preliminary
findings on the acceptance and use of PCC records by non-PCC libraries
in support of his doctoral dissertation at Nova Southeastern
University's Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences.

Please remember that as of December 1, 2003, NACO participants have
fewer categories of name authority record (NAR) changes and
bibliographic file maintenance (BFM) to report to the Library of
Congress (LC), thanks to the greater use of automated reports generated
by bibliographic utilities. This means that contributing NACO
institutions no longer need to report routine BFM or matching duplicate
records directly to LC. The guidelines for reporting BFM for NACO are
available at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/naco/bfmguide.html

The Task Group to Survey PCC Libraries on Cataloging of Remote Access
Electronic Resources has recalibrated results of its survey that are now
reflective of the comprehensive number of responses.  Please visit
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/tgsrvyeres_final.pdf for the up-to-date
figures and the group's final report.

The PCC Task Force on Assessment has prepared an interim report that is
now available at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/tgassess_rpt.pdf .
Please take the opportunity to read about the status of its work and how
the Task Group has identified preliminary measures for gathering data to
assess the effectiveness of PCC in meeting the needs of its libraries
for monographs and serials.

As is customary, please keep your finger on the "reload" button as we
in the Cooperative Cataloging Team do make additions on a regular basis
as new reports become available.  Make certain that any changes in
contact information for program liaisons is communicated directly to
John N. Mitchell at [log in to unmask]

Most importantly, let's all look forward to the upcoming President's
Day celebration and an early Spring thaw.

                                John N. Mitchell