Personally, I'd favor putting some sort of qualitative or quantitative
assessment by each subject heading, so you could put "25% King's Evil"
or "touches on [no pun intended] King's Evil" into the record. Then
you could put in as many headings as any reasonable person might use
to locate an item, and allow relevancy ranking within a subject to
boot.
You could do this gradually, perhaps only on new stuff, without
upsetting the apple cart. It think it's the sort of new-old mashup
that could save LCSH. Insisting that books are about three or any
fixed or suggested number subjects, and about them to the same degree,
is just dogmatism.
Tim
On 8/5/07, Ted P Gemberling <tgemberl_at_uab.edu> wrote:
> 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 Mon Aug 06 2007 - 12:01:21 EDT