SCIPIO Users Group Meeting

Minutes

Apr. 3, 2001

Art Libraries Society of North America 29^th Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA

Prima Casetta, Head of Serials, The Getty Research Institute, and editor of the new SCIPIO Cataloging Guide, chaired the meeting. Tony Gill represented RLG.  Twenty-four participants were present.

The facilitator announced that the meeting has an informal structure.

The discussions focused on the following topics:

The new guide for cataloging in SCIPIO

Best searching practices

Becoming a contributor

Outreach

New SCIPIO Cataloging Guide

A request came from the floor for Prima to go over the new guidelines.  She went over each field, mentioning the changes, and the fact that the New Guide highlights the fields used in SCIPIO, rather than regular cataloging.  She stressed the recommendation of following AACR2, especially for controlled fields.  Tony added that the goal of the new guide is to make cataloging in SCIPIO more straightforward.

The floor went to the participants, with the first focus on Auction House Headings.  As far as help for creating auction house authority records, Lori Thorrat, Cleveland Museum of Art, suggested to search the NAF first, Tony, to use SCA, and another suggestion was to contact Sherman Clarke, ArtNACO coordinator for advice.  Prima suggested to refer to AACR2  in answering some of the questions, and to share with the SCIPIO community the changes that each institution makes.  One of the strongest concerns expressed was that some of the auction houses have many different locations, and how this aspect will be resolved, since the NAF headings do not include location. Tony suggested using the heading with the qualifier “firm” in the 110, and a 518 for location/place. Prima emphasized to use the corporate body the way it was established in the NAF, and the 518 for location/place.  Evalyn Stone, Watson Library, thought that Sotheby’s, New York, and Sotheby’s, London, should both be used because they are large houses, but for smaller ones, she too thinks that the combination 110/518 should work.  She encouraged the participants to think how users would look for this info. in order to make the best decision. Valery Hoyt, Christie’s, thinks that location included in the heading is very important in limiting a search; for ex., when searching Phillip’s, Bath, is so much better than searching Phillip’s only, which will bring up a lot of hits.  Donald Dodds, V&A, UK said that location is considered very important in their practice: they have separate headings for each location of an auction house, and apply the same principle for Country Houses.  He suggested that each library should also look at its local practice and try to be consistent with it.  Anne Champagne, Art Institute of Chicago, very confidently suggested that we should use AACR2: if it is a separate body, yes, create a different heading, otherwise, no.  Marianne Cavanaugh, St. Louis Art Museum: Sotheby’s is established without a qualifier in the NAF, and one cannot change it.  Tony convincingly affirmed that if one wants to standardize, one has to give up local practice.  Evalyn added that the long term benefits of standardization are well worth effort.

The discussion moved to the next topic -- Title:

Linda M. Schaff, Philadelphia Museum of Art, said that at the present they are entering old catalogs, and chose to input all the words in the title, and all the artists’ names. 

Prima answered that personal judgement ought to be used in order to eliminate some unnecessary elements, but that libraries can make records fuller if they decide to.  Anne reminded the audience that AACR2 stipulates abridging long titles.

Imprint: Prima suggested including the publisher only if there is one.

Physical Description: Prima suggested inputting the original size for items that have been bound or enclosed in larger covers, and to indicate the changes in a local note.

Administration/Organization: SCIPIO cataloging does not need to be done by professional catalogers; the old institution distribution by auction house is still in place, but not strictly enforced.  Prima used this opportunity to remind participants that there have been no coordinators for some years.  The Task Force has been trying to attract volunteers, but nobody responded yet.  She appealed to the floor for volunteers.  Evalyn suggested to start with a job description, and Lory reminisced that the coordinators used to run the Users Group and maintain the Guidelines.

Best Searching Indexes

Prima asked how reference librarians at different institutions use/search SCIPIO.

Susan Lenz, UC, St. Barbara: use place name as keyword.  Marianne: by place of sale.

James Mitchell, Frick Art Reference Library: date of sale is most important, but using 3 indexes seems to be best.  Prima acknowledged that in Eureka, a search by auction house, date, and keyword would bring good results; keyword has to be indexed to search 518.  Marianne said that their library will have to include a new index for genre/form; their system is indexed to search all text; having SCIPIO standardized will be very advantageous.  Prima invited the participants to read the article she wrote in RLG Focus, Oct. 2000, about downloading The Getty’s SCIPIO records in their OPAC, using Innovative’s “scoping”. Voyager, Endeavor’s system The Getty will switch to, does not have this option at the present.  Tony asked if the system searches by sale code, and Prima answered that sale code is searchable as all the other alpha-numeric fields, such as ISBN, ISSN.  Donald added that they use the 049 field to id the cats.

Becoming a contributor.

Tony asked the participants how one starts working in SCIPIO when one becomes a contributor?

Lori: by training the SCIPIO cataloger, for approximately one week.

Anne: train the reference librarians how to use/search the database.

4.  Outreach

Tony encouraged the audience to join RLG’s SCIPIO listserv and post questions/comments.

James would like to propose a survey on SCIPIO holdings (what is in SCIPIO, who has what, who’s contributor, who’s participant).  Everybody agreed that this would be a good idea.  Prima & Tony suggested placing the questions on the SCIPIO list.  Donald thought that it would be good to include the auction houses from which various institutions have been collecting, and Lori, that it would be a good tool for identifying collections.  So thought Anne, especially because some libraries catalog auction cats. in BKS.

Ken Soehner, Watson Library, congratulated The Task Force for the productive and collegial work they’ve done in order to bring SCIPIO cataloging to full AACR2 standards.

Prima placed another call for volunteering as coordinator/s, and thanked participants for their contributions.

Prepared by Rodica L. Preda
Frick Art Reference Library.  May 25, 2001