Lynn El Hoshy reported on LC activities. The Jefferson Building opened on May 1st; there is an online version of the inaugural treasures exhibition. LC's bicentennial will be celebrated in 2000. The budget requested for the next fiscal year is up 7.1%, with funds for the new system and pay increases. They are experiencing 40 million transactions a month on LOCIS. Several thesauri are searchable on the thesauri home page. The last catalog cards have been sold. Core bib records will become the basis for new cataloging records from LC; implementation plans are being discussed. Beacher Wiggins has been appointed director of cataloging (having been acting director for two years or so). NACO is 20 years old. SACO participation has increased. The subject heading workshop is to be repeated at the next ALA Annual (in Washington). CPSO has a page on the LC home page now (... catdir/cpso/). The 20th edition of LCSH has been published, with 232,000 headings. The LC tag tables will be updated to include form headings and subdivisions even if implementation is not anticipated immediately. Electronic resources will be the form guinea pig. "--Computer games" has been approved as a form subdivision. "--History" is being worked on. Issues on art subject headings have been referred for comment to the Cataloging Advisory Committee of ARLIS/NA. More "in ..." phrases have been revised: "... in art" has been discontinued as a free-floater; "--In bookplates" has been added; "--Press coverage" replaces "... in the press." Other changes: "Body language" replaces "Nonverbal communication (Psychology)"; "Arab-Israeli conflicts" replaces "Israeli-Arab conflicts." City sections have mostly been moved from SAF to NAF. The Holocaust Museum is working on moving headings for concentration camps. "Special decades" is to be added. New editions of class C and S have been published. A new edition of H is underway, with HJ for public finance. JZ and KZ were implemented on May 1st, replacing JX for international law. A new edition of J will be issued later in 1997. KLP has been discontinued for Ukrainian law, and replaced by KKY (part of Europe). Other new editions include D-DR, DS-DX, and the tables for P-PZ.
The papers from the subcommittee's program are to be posted on Arlene Taylor's web site.
NLM has used $x for form subdivisions in MARC though they are coded differently in the internal system. They have approximately 30,000 records with form subdivisions. They will start coding for form in the 1998 cataloging year, with most being in subdivisions rather than the lead term in a heading. They also have "publication type" which should be form but is now a special field; these occur mostly in history of medicine AV titles.
At LC, the first implementation of form will be in electronic resources and computer files. Next will be children's literature.
Catalogers at Harvard are discussing form implementation but it has not been discussed by systems people.
Harriet Hemmasi has been investigating form terminology in music materials, where it may occur in 04X, 300, 245, etc. as well as 655 or 6XX $v.