This blog to give me a place to vent about cataloging issues I encounter every day.
Although I use Destiny Library Manager from Follett Software Company and have access to their Alliance Plus records I never accept catalog records from elsewhere without editing to make them suitable for my own catalog.
I love cataloging for a lot of reasons:
  • My mind runs to organizing stuff
  • I love learning about new things and trying to figure out how to make information resources accessible to my students and teachers
  • I'm a bit obsessive about making sure subject headings, keywords, classification numbers, etc. are consistent.
Follow this blog to learn how I catalog my collection, my pet peeves with subject and classification schemes, maybe a little about RDA, the new cataloging rules which are set to replace the old Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, and whatever else I'm inspired by.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Mental health and a problem with juvie fiction

Rethink Mental IllnessImage via WikipediaFinishing up "Mental health" today.

One problem I've discovered is that when the Library of Congress subject headings are not deleted or changed in a record fiction books can display without the subdivision because "Juvenile fiction" in some library catalog software. For example, the book Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson has two subject headings when it comes from Alliance +, Mental illness--Juvenile fiction (Library of Congress) and Mental illness--Fiction (Sears). The problem comes because our catalog software, Destiny, does not display the Juvenile fiction subheading so it looks like this is a non-fiction book about mental illness. The solution is to either change the LC subdivision to Fiction or delete it entirely. I choose to delete it--along with all the other irrelevant or duplicated LC subject headings. This makes it far less confusing for the patron when searching for non-fiction books about a topic in the catalog.
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