Nathan,
I think you put the issues real well. Here's a couple of examples of
where I think inconsistency is okay. Or generally assigning headings
that are not entirely according to rules.
I work in a medical library, and a couple of days ago I cataloged a book
on a physician in the 17th century, "Serjeant [sic] Surgeon John
Knight." Naturally, the basic headings for the book are for John Knight
(600) and the MeSH headings (650's) "Military
Medicine--history--England" and "Surgery--England--Biography." However,
there's also a chapter on something that I found quite historically
interesting, King's Evil. It was a kind of tuberculosis that
traditionally was thought to be healed by the touch of a king. Knight
was close to the king, so he was involved in setting up the "touch"
appointments.
Now, when I first started out as a cataloger, I remember being told that
you shouldn't put a heading on unless at least a third of the book is
about that topic. And in this case, it's only one chapter. So that is
probably contrary to that rule. But this subject was interesting to me,
and I noticed it's a heading ("King's Evil") that was established by the
National Library of Medicine pretty recently. Also, this is the first
time it's been used in our database.
Here's where the inconsistency comes in. There are most likely other
books in our collection that touch on King's Evil to as great an extent
as this book. We have an extensive history of medicine collection. So a
user or reference person will not be able to say that the use of this
heading coincides with the actual presence of the subject in our
collection. But my point is that if someone comes to the library looking
for materials on King's Evil, the heading on that one book will help
her. She'll find the book, and it will most likely have bibliographical
references pointing her to others on the topic.
Another cataloging rule that I've sometimes violated is one that says
you shouldn't put more than 3 subjects on a bib. Actually, I don't think
this is strictly a rule today, but I think it may have been at one
point. Another aspect of it was that if you had more than 3, you were
supposed to find a more general one that covered them or some of them,
to bring them to three or fewer. I'm pretty sure this was at least
partly a labor-saving rule. Management didn't want people to spend much
time assigning subject headings. I'm assuming it's also partly about
respecting the role of broader terms. You shouldn't have a series of
narrower terms together that all add up to one broader term. I think I
agree with that, but there are also times when you need both broader and
narrower terms, as when a book is mostly about a narrower term, but some
parts of it are about that term's BT. Also, I think we have to realize
that subject headings need to support keyword searching, and the more
subject vocabulary there is on a record, the more likely it will be
retrieved that way.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be practical limits on the number of
subject headings we use. But I just don't think I can live with the
3-subject rule all the time.
Nathan, I appreciate your discussion of philosophy. It sounds like
you're a philosophical "realist," as I am. Not "realist" in the sense of
being a "hard-headed realist," but in the sense of believing there is a
real natural order in the universe, and part of our task in the world is
to find that order, not just imagine it. Of course that doesn't mean
it's easy to find, or that people who think they've found it (or bits of
it) have a right to be arrogant to those who don't see it their way. We
need to be both "realist" and humble, and I think you exemplify that.
Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library
(205)934-2461
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Rinne, Nathan (ESC)
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 4:10 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Elitism - and Aristotle again! - in libraries
(was "Elitism in libraries")
Ted,
Good grief. Thanks. Not sure if it will help me get a job though (did
you see my "contrarian", philosophical (well, *I* think I'm practical :)
) posts on NGC4Lib?
Ted: I guess I'm kind of Weinbergian in thinking that a certain amount
of inconsistency is okay. Part of the burden of research belongs to the
user, and complexities of ideas are such that you probably can't expect
indexers to assign all headings consistently. The user needs to figure
that out to some extent, with the help of reference people. (end)
I too think it is impossible to expect indexers to assign all headings
consistently. And yet - if the person cataloging knows the topic
they're cataloging about relatively well; and if they try very hard to
accurately represent (with an eye towards creating detailed subject
headings) the ideas / representations of the author in terms the
intended audience can understand; and if they do so following accepted,
agreed-upon conventions, doing so consistently - then this situation is
much better than if just a couple uncontrolled vocabulary keywords are
attached to an item (extreme statement - straw man - I know...). Again,
to me, this seems like love (paying attention to something...
"listening" to it... trying to represent it as accurately as possible...
sharing it with others in a way that it can readily be found... doing so
in the context of other things like it, etc.). It also is putting a
real value on hard work, curiosity, "leather-foot journalism", etc., of
the other. !
Will this be perfect, proven, 100%, beyond probabilities, etc. (a la
Plato and his ideals)? No. But - *if together we share a world out
there* - and if the people who write the books - with all of their
particular biases / hated "isms" (some who no doubt recognize them
better than others) - share the same world and have taken it upon
themselves to look closely at this or that and to communicate to us some
aspect of it they find important or interesting (let's assume for a
minute its *not all about* self-interested power plays)... then to me,
at least, it seems more reasonable to believe that we can - and should
try - to make *some* overall sense of reality than not (or you can go
ahead and just get real cynical about those "selfish genes" you got :)).
If some want to call that a particular philosophy, or faith, I
understand - some, after all, many would say that it is irrational to
even try this. I imagine most [naïve?] regular folks would call that
some "good sense" t!
hough. And I would argue that if some rather intellectual person, for
example, says they believe otherwise, in their actions they often
tacitly betray those stated beliefs. Most people would "popularize"
their heady stuff *if they could*.
Otherwise - if there is *nothing* orderly about the world (remember, not
even David says this) and we can't discover *anything* (here - I'm not
sure in what sense David thinks things can be discovered) - why are we
talking anyways? :) And what *in the world* are those crazy librarians
talking about? But if we think it's a good thing to think we can learn
about the whole wide world out there - and not just what interests us at
the moment, can we even teach a child this, for instance, without trying
to meaningfully categorize the people, places, things, influential
ideas, etc. that are out there?
I don't think so - but don't you put me in any boxes now... :)
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 12:53 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Elitism - and Aristotle again! - in libraries
(was Elitism in libraries)
Blanka,
Yes, Nathan's posts are wonderful. So gracious and thought provoking.
He's a lot better exponent of library values than I am (when I logged
onto my e-mail last night, I did with trepidation, expecting some angry
responses to my rant on Wednesday about library literature. And I may
still get them.)
Nathan, you confirmed something I'd been thinking for awhile. I also
figured Mann was real pro-computer until a certain point, not at all
reactionary. In fact, I bet that when the online catalog came along, he
thought it was the greatest thing ever for library users. I think the
tipping point may have come with the 1991 article by Dorothy Gregor and
Carol Mandel, "Cataloging must change!" Or perhaps a bit later, since I
think that article did not begin to be real influential right away. At
any rate, it wasn't until 1997 that he wrote his response to it, which I
think is a classic. Here are a few lines from it:
"A few years ago, I was surprised to hear a speaker at an ALA convention
assert that it was 'known' that subject catalogers cannot agree on which
headings to assign to books; the speaker referred to a 1991 Library
Journal article as, apparently, validating that belief ... A few months
ago I heard it once more from a graduate student at one of the local
library schools. Her cataloging class, it seems, was debating whether or
not LC Subject Headings were even necessary any more, and the same 1991
LJ article was being offered as "evidence" in the discussion. The gist
of one of the major arguments presented in the article, 'Cataloging must
change!' ... is that fine distinctions in subject cataloging simply do
not matter because there is so little consistency in the assignment of
LC subject headings anyway."
Suddenly the online catalog and keyword searching, things which had
given users more access, were being used as an excuse to dismantle our
system of subject cataloging.
It's significant that Karen Calhoun cited Gregor and Mandel's article as
an inspiration for her work when she made her Report on the future of
bibliographic control over the last couple of years. Mann's article in
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly can be found in v. 23 (3/4), 1997.
Now, I will say, as I have before, that I don't think consistency is
quite as important as Mann or Gregor and Mandel think. I side with Mann
on the value of assigning subject headings and do think consistency is a
good goal, but I guess I'm kind of Weinbergian in thinking that a
certain amount of inconsistency is okay. Part of the burden of research
belongs to the user, and complexities of ideas are such that you
probably can't expect indexers to assign all headings consistently. The
user needs to figure that out to some extent, with the help of reference
people.
Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library
(205)934-2461
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Bajankova, Blanka (KCEL)
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:32 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Elitism - and Aristotle again! - in libraries
(was Elitism in libraries)
It is a joy to read your thoughts, Nathan Rinne.
Blanka
Blanka Bajankova, Librarian
FAO UN
David Lubin M. Library
CDP-Monographs Cataloguing Unit
00153 Rome, Italy
Received on Sun Aug 05 2007 - 20:14:40 EDT