| [ TAF Home ] | Proceedings of the Taxonomic Authority Files Workshop, Washington, DC, June 22-23, 1998 |
Taxonomic Authority Files Workshop
Opening Remarks
Welcome to the Workshop on the Compilation, Maintenance, and Dissemination of Taxonomic Authority Files: a comparison of authority control in the library science and biodiversity information management communities.
First, I'd like to acknowledge the support we've received from the sponsoring organizations:
I would also like to give my very special and personal thanks to the other members of the workshop planning committee (in alphabetical order):
In this brief introduction I need to cover some procedural items. Then I'm going to turn the podium over to John Mitchell, who will give us some background on the origins of the workshop. I will then take the podium again and give you a bit more detail about the premise of the workshop, our objectives, and some long-term issues.
The procedural items I wanted to cover are that we have name-tags and two handouts on the back table. The handouts are: (1) the program or agenda; and (2) a list of registered participants (with affiliations and email addresses). We also have a few copies of a background document—a slightly abridged version of the NSF proposal for this workshop—that gives my take on role of taxonomic authority files in the broader setting of biological data management. There are only about ten copies on the back table, but it's posted on the Web. So unless you have a pressing desire to read it tonight, I suggest you keep your luggage light and get your copy off the net. Finally, I want to say that these proceedings are being recorded. In addition to the podium microphones we have two wireless microphones, and we'll need your cooperation in handing them around when we get to the discussion portions of this workshop. If you have a question or a comment, please raise your hand and wait until a microphone reaches you before you begin.
Now I'd like to introduce my collaborator from the library side, John Mitchell. John
received his bachelor's degree in biology from Juniata College and has a teaching
certification in biological sciences and botany from Brigham Young University. There was a
gap in his career, which he wouldn't tell me about because he said he would have to kill
me if he did. He surfaced again at the Library of Congress in 1983, but soon moved to the
National Institutes of Health, where he ultimately became head of cataloging. He returned
to the Library of Congress and is currently a
Program Specialist on the Cooperative Cataloging Team where he functions as the Assistant
Coordinator for BIBCO, the bibliographic component of the Program for Cooperative
Cataloging. He speaks many languages, including German, Russian, French, and Italian, and
I've even heard him carry on a conversation in Swedish. In relation to this workshop, he
is Chair of the ALCTS Task Force on a Forum for Natural History Cataloging Issues.
Good morning. It's a distinct pleasure to welcome you to the Taxonomic Authority Files Workshop. May the next two days be as exciting for you as it was for us on the planning committee and the American Library Association's Task Force on a Forum for Natural History Cataloging Issues, the members of which I would like to acknowledge at this time.
Allow me to briefly describe the Task Force. On June 26, 1993, the then Data Administrator of the Harvard University Herbaria, Dr. James H. Beach, presented a paper to the Cataloging Committee on Description and Access (CC:DA), a committee of the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, where he discussed the increasing importance of catalog development in the natural history community. During subsequent discussion a motion to form a task force was approved by the CC:DA committee, and charged the task force to examine the possibility of a forum at which concepts underlying library cataloging that might be applicable to the natural sciences might be explored. By June, 1994, the Task Force had determined that such a forum was not only feasible, but desirable. However, as the forum evolved over the course of the past four years it became abundantly clear that its scope would be much broader than merely a discussion of bibliographic description and access issues. It would also include subject access, authority control issues, database design, infrastructure issues, and cooperative cataloging programs. Today represents the culmination of these efforts and I hope that this workshop will be the first in an on-going dialogue between the natural history and library communities, and that one of the outcomes will be the means to carryout the dialogue and cooperation. I charge all of you to participate actively. Please remember that the recommendations of the workshop will be generated by your enthusiasm and involvement.
One last point: the communities here represent two seemingly unrelated disciplines, yet the issues that we are about to discuss cut across and are important to both. While the jargon in our disciplines may vary, the concepts are the same. The Task Force feels that we can learn a lot from each other.
¹ Stan Blum was at the the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu when the workshop's NSF grant was submitted and awarded, and at the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas (Lawrence) when the workshop was held.
² Jim Beach is now at the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas (Lawrence).