In late-June of 2005 the Cataloging Policy and Support Office posted a proposal for the addition of dates to existing personal name headings, and solicited comments from the wider cataloging community. It was rewarding to see the tremendous response and interesting discussion that this proposal stimulated, and CPSO would like to thank all those who responded. A complete summary of the comments received, and a discussion of the resulting decisions made by Library of Congress cataloging management is available at //www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/deathdates.pdf (PDF - 14 p.; 140K).
In brief, these decisions are:
- Allow the optional addition of death dates to established headings that contain birth dates only.
- Continue the "status quo" regarding the restriction of adding dates (birth and/or death) to existing headings that previously had no dates and are not in conflict with other headings.
Additional simplification and implementation issues are addressed in the full report.
A draft of LCRI 22.17 incorporating these decisions is available at //www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/22-17-rev05.pdf (PDF - 2 p.; 19K).
Reminder: Although the basic decisions are provided for your information, in the interest of an orderly implementation the Library requests that the new policies not be followed until the relevant documentation can be revised and published.
