Remember the CALL Conference?: The KFMod Committee Meeting
Many apologies for the blog silence lately. Too many things on the go and not enough time to get many of them going … 🙂
So, cast your mind back to May 9, 2010. It was a sunny day although a very blustery one: we really experienced the ‘wind’ in Windsor that day. The KF Modified Committee meeting was held at 1:00pm in the Solis Room at the Caesar’s Windsor Hotel and Convention Facility.
It was a small turn out but we managed to address a number of important issues. Attendees were myself, Humayun Rashid (University of Toronto), Joan Yanofsky (Supreme Court of Canada) and Darren Furey (University of New Brunswick).
We started with a discussion of cataloguing practices in general. The consensus was that there continues to be a lack of copy cataloguing for at least 5-10% of resources that pass through our cataloguing offices, primarily for theses, casebooks, CLE materials and workshops. Unfortunately, it was also noted that the copy cataloguing that was available often contains mistakes and the treatment of the materials is inadequate.
We then moved on to talk about the promotion of KF Modified and whether KF Modified should begin to develop more independently. It is still tied rather tightly to the changes and additions that are added to the Library of Congress Class KF for U.S. law. These are certainly useful but the changes that might occur in KE (Canada), KD (U.K. & Ireland) and KU (Australia & New Zealand), etc. may also be useful additions to the KF Modified scheme.
Along with the LC additions and changes the enhancements and improvements that are added by the KF Modified Committee in response to the users of the scheme are also creating a more independent approach to the schedule. Updating the language so that it reflects an appropriate Canadian usage where applicable is another area of improvement under consideration.
The bulk of the meeting was devoted to reviewing the draft enhancements for KF4483.I5 (Immigration and emigration. Aliens. Passports) and KF4483.N3 (Nationality and citizenship. Naturalization) prepared by Rashid. The enhancements were accepted by the group in principle but some problems with how the call numbers would be created were worked on. The approach was simplified and Rashid agreed to update the enhancements accordingly. If all goes well these will appear in the update for the 2nd quarter of 2010.
Darren will be updating Janet Moss’ Guide to KF Modified Classification taking into consideration the recent changes, for example the updated form division tables and the introduction of the section for Quebec civil law. This will hopefully align with the role out of the current and future enhancements planned for KF Modified (i.e. labour law, First Nations, environmental law and law of taxation).
A brief discussion of developments around the new cataloguing rules RDA (Resource Description and Access), including a short lament on the fact that RDA will not be available under an open access licence. This led to thoughts of offering KF Modified as a freely available and open access initiative. Something to consider.
One change that was decided on, and which you will have already seen in the 1st quarter update, is a change in the title for KF Modified. To broaden its potential appeal to libraries outside of Canada it was agreed to change the name to KF Classification Modified for use in Canadian and Common Law Libraries. Plans to market KF Modified to libraries in the U.K. and Australia are now also in the works.
If you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions, concerns, please let me know either by commenting here or dropping me a line.
Happy cataloguing! 🙂
Last 2 Updates Have Been Distributed
Just a short note to let you know that the 4th Quarter 2009 and 1st Quarter 2010 updates have been distributed and everything should now be up-to-date.
Now to complete the updates for the 2nd Quarter 2010 … 🙂
The KF Modified Blog 