Introduction

The Controlled Vocabularies subcommittee of the Bibliographic Standards Committee is placing a moratorium on new term proposals for the RBMS thesauri. This moratorium will allow the subcommittee to concentrate its efforts on rectifying problems and creating scope notes for current terms so that the seven thesauri can be reconciled into one controlled vocabulary for rare materials.

Background

When the subcommittee meets at the ALA conferences, more than two-thirds of the allotted meeting time is spent discussing new terms, and so we have little time to work on reconciling the vocabularies. Our effort to work on the controlled vocabularies as a whole is always pushed aside because of the many term proposals that we receive. Although the subcommittee's efficiency has grown with the use of this wiki, it will take many years to combine the thesauri if we cannot concentrate on this project. An ongoing OCLC Terminologies project is also at a standstill until certain discrepancies are resolved between terms, hierarchies, and thesauri. It is for these reasons the subcommittee will put a temporary stop to new term consideration.

• A moratorium will be placed on the acceptance of new term proposals for inclusion in the RBMS Controlled Vocabularies.
• The moratorium will go into effect on June 9th, 2009, one month prior to ALA Annual in July.
• Any new term proposals that are received before the moratorium will be discussed at ALA Annual Meeting in 2009.
• The subcommittee will continue to work on any term proposals that are outstanding until they are resolved.
• During the moratorium, institutions and individuals may submit term proposals for consideration once term review commences.
• The moratorium will be in effect for two years.
• If additional time is needed, the current editor will petition the Bibliographic Standards Committee for an extension.
• Regular progress reports on the work of the Controlled Vocabularies subcommittee will be made at BSC meetings, allowing interested parties to track our progress

Questions and suggestions can be sent to the editor