Blacks, Whites and Others

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/7/17/995004/-

Blacks "Use for materials on the Black race in general or for materials on Blacks as an element in the population, especially in countries where they are a minority. Materials on Black people in countries with a population predominantly Black are assigned headings appropriate for the country without the use of the heading Blacks, except when the works discuss Blacks as distinct from other groups in the country." [Emphasis added]
This is a direct quote from Sears (21st ed.) The odd part about this is that many catalogers persist in giving the subject heading, Blacks--[geog. heading]--Fiction, to books which are set in majority Black countries, e.g. Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, etc. It's as if we had to give the subject heading, Whites--United States--Fiction, to every book about a white person/family in the U.S. Or Asians--China--Fiction, to a book about Chinese people. It's just weird.
I admit sometimes it can be a bit tricky with countries on the edge of Sub-Saharan Africa, e.g. Sudan, but those countries (mostly in Northern Africa) are the exception to the rule. Another exception is, of course, South Africa, where the Black/White/Colored split is an obvious issue.
Be careful when using the heading Blacks (or Asians) that you aren't inadvertently resorting to subtle racism.
By the way, since Black race is not an allowed subject heading in Sears just use Blacks instead. Also, there is no subject heading for Whites or Caucasians in Sears which also seems odd. LCSH does use Whites as a subject heading. It's the exact same pattern with headings beginning Men or Male. The assumption in subject cataloging is that everyone is male and white--every other possible combination is the exception.

"A" Milestone is Reached

When I started my subject heading project for Oakland Unified School District on March 19 of this year I had no idea how long it would take to get through the collection one heading at a time. Today I reached a milestone. I finished the subject headings which begin with the letter A. That's page 80 of 946 of the 21st edition of Sears List of Subject Headings. Or approximately through the 8.5% of the List.

It's taken me a little more than 5 months to reach this point so see that the task is capable of being accomplished. At this rate, it will take approximately 4 1/2 years to complete the whole List. Of course, by that time another edition of Sears will have been published but let's not think about that right now!

The last subject heading beginning with the letter A was "Aztlán." It refers to a mythological place mentioned in early Aztec manuscripts which some Mexicans and Mexican Americans believe was the place of origin of native Mexican culture. Once in Mexico I visited one of the areas in Nayarit where Aztlán is supposed to have been located. At any rate, cross-references include: Geographical myths, Aztecs--Origins, Mexican Americans--Ethnic identity, and, Aztec mythology.

That brings me to another interesting issue catalogers face when assigning subject headings: the differences among mythology, legend religion, and folklore. Sears doesn't define Mythology but refers to Legends as "tales coming down from the past, especially those relating to actual events or persons." Dictionary.com defines myth as "a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, of phenomenon of nature." (Emphasis added). Folklore is defined by Sears as "stories based on spoken rather than written traditions."

I guess my point in bringing all this up is that there are rather subtle differences among these topics. All are stories, but legends relate to actual events or persons, myths may or may not be based on actual events or persons, and the main distinguishing characteristic of folklore is that it's oral.

Sears also distinguishes these topics in the way they qualify or subdivide them. Folklore and Legends may be subdivided geographically, e.g. Folklore--China and Legends--United States. But Mythology can't be subdivided that way. Instead, it's qualified by the names of ancient peoples, e.g. Celtic mythology, Aztec mythology. You can use particular ethnic or religious groups to qualify Legends, e.g. Jewish legends; Celtic legends. But for Folklore don't use a qualifier, instead subdivide the names of ethnic or occupational groups by Folklore, e.g. Native Americans--Folklore (not Native American folklore) and Firefighters--Folklore (not Firefighter folklore). It can get a little tricky here as you will see if you look in Sears you will find the cross-reference Native American legends USE Native Americans--Folklore. And since the headings under Native Americans apply equally to Native American tribes, there will properly be a cross-reference from non-used Aztec legends to Aztecs--Folklore. This would seem to be in contradiction to the instruction above.

At this point, my head is spinning.

But later today I will hit a brand-new letter (B!) and will soldier on through Sears with all its interesting dilemmas and paradoxes.

https://arthropodsbio11cabe.wikispaces.com/Minnie+page

I'm working on arthropods now and once again Sears proves itself to be inconsistent. There is no heading for Arthropods or Arthropoda in the current (21st) edition of Sears. However, under Animals there is a note "SA names of orders and classes of the animal kingdom;... [to be added as needed]" So one of the two headings but not both should be used. The dilemma comes in deciding which form to use. Sears uses Amphibians, Arachnids, Invertebrates, Mammals, Reptiles, etc., all English-language versions of their respective orders or classes. But for some reason the editors decided to use the Latin form, Crustacea, instead of Crustaceans for that group of animals. I checked Library of Congress Authorities and they use Arthropods so I decided to do the same. Evidently LoC previously used Arthropoda since many titles are coming up with that subject heading. Why Sears reverts to Crustacea for Crustaceans is a question to which only the editors know the answer for sure.

Is it Art and technology or Technology and art?

Image courtesy of the Rhode Island School of Design

So here's another little dilemma Sears provides. I'm working on the subject heading "Art" and the note states "SA (See also) ...art and other subjects, e.g. Art and mythology...." A title appears in the collection which has the heading "Art and technology." When I peruse the heading "Technology" there is a similar note saying, "SA technology and other subjects,..." My question then has to be: which is it? "Art and technology" or "Technology and art?" Since both are valid headings both must be considered. Since "Art" comes first alphabetically, I'll use that for now. More later when I've had a chance to look at Library of Congress Authorities (The whole LoC system is down right now for maintenance). In the meantime, what's the relationship between "Art and technology" and Art--Technological innovations?" Research to follow.
In following up I discovered that LoC does indeed use Art and technology with a cross-reference from Technology and art. And it doesn't give the same direction about "Art and ... [other topic]" ot "Technology and ... [other topic]" which Sears gives.

Beyond "Architecture"

I'm up to "Armed forces" in the subject heading list now but had to pass through "Architecture" to get there. Fortunately, there is no discrepancy with LC on the basic heading but many with indirect headings did need to be changed. Several years ago (I'm not sure which edition it was) Sears changed from indirect heading such as "Architecture, Greek" to direct, "Greek architecture. With few exceptions, mostly geographic, such as "Tahoe, Lake" and "Everest, Mount (China and Nepal)," Sears uses direct phrasing rather than indirect. Whether this is an improvement or not is debatable, but the conscientious cataloger using Sears will eliminate headings which are indirect in favor of those which are direct.
Another issue which Sears is very clear about is the admission that the Sears List cannot account for every possible heading. "The general references in the List should reinforce the point that the List does not aim at completeness and must be expanded. Even where there is no general reference, narrower terms for types of things and examples and instances of things must be added as needed." (Page xxxv) This gets us back to "Armed forces." Based on the previous quote, I added "Special forces (Military science)" to the List for a title The visual dictionary of special military forces. How did I decide upon the exact wording of the heading? I used the Library of Congress Authorities, a resource which every cataloger should be intimately familiar with.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/2vjbak/mexican_special_forces_participate_in_a_military/

Archeology vs. archaeology

For some reason Sears editors prefer to use the spelling a-r-c-h-e-o-l-o-g-y instead of the spelling used by the Library of Congress, archaeology. I'm not sure why this is the case. I noticed that as I'm entering the term into a record my computer actually sees it as a misspelling. I think the editors thinks it's kind of pretentious to put that "a" in the middle of the word but if the entire world recognizes the word with the "a" then what's the issue?

A new catalog, a new beginning

As you can see I haven't posted to this blog in quite a while. Now I have a new motivation to do so. For the past several months I've been working on the Oakland Unified School District online catalog. My major task is fixing subject headings, but in the process I'm also merging duplicate records, finding or creating better records, deleting records with no copies, and so forth. I started at the beginning of the alphabet (actually, numerals first) and am already up to archeology. Woo-hoo! My main motivation for continuing this blog will be concerns and criticism of Sears List of Subject Headings. I'm finding typos all over the latest edition (21st : 2014) and will point those out as I go along but there also other issues which crop up including incomplete cross-references, interesting lapses in included subject headings, and many more. I encourage comments on my posts. I have my opinions which you certainly may not agree with. Let's get a conversation going!