Library of Congress Subject headings

Library of Congress Subject Headings

For over 100 years, the Library of Congress has been supplying subject headings to the collection. At first, it was in order to create a form of order for just the Library of Congress. However, as more and more libraries began to adopt the subject headings the LOC developed, the LOC began to expand the distribution of subject headings, first in volumes and supplements produced in book form, and more recently in Microfiche, CD, and online at Cataloger’s Desktop. The LOC subject headings are one of the most influential descriptors in the library, giving librarians a guide and controlled vocabulary for describing materials uniformly across all levels of library. Some, like Thomas Mann, are passionate about maintaining the Library of Congress’s work with subject headings and their continued use in libraries. Others, like Tom Steele, are advocates for other means of organization, like tagging and keyword search.

Recently, we have been looking at the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) as either the white hat cowboy or the black hat cowboy in everybody’s favorite Western movie. The group discussion has been centered on whether or not the controlled vocabulary of a given system puts one group at a disadvantage over another or in some way imposes a cultural attitude or worldview onto that group. I for one know that the answer to that question is decidedly murky. But there are some opinions that can be gleaned from librarians who are much more “in the know” as well as some answers to just how culturally demanding the LCSHs are.

To begin, it’s best to understand some definitions and then move onto the meat and potatoes of this argument by looking at the literature and seeing just what kind of impact these forms of description are having on society. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (2010) defines hegemony as “the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/). What this means for the purpose of this discussion is that some scholars and librarians argue that the very nature of a system that describes materials or classifies them into a given order ultimately pushes that system’s worldview onto the users of that system, whether they agree or not. I personally don’t agree with this notion, so I look forward to asking these two questions regarding LCSHs and cultural hegemony: 1. What prejudices do LCSHs exhibit? 2. What assumptions do LCSHs make about their users?

So, what do we see when we look for bias in the LCSHs? The first would be the idea that all subject headings fit neatly into a hierarchy. The way the subject headings work is that all subject terms can be found by following the branch from whence it started. Think of it like a really big “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral” chart. This assumption submits that all subjects can be traced back up the tree. Olson (2004) states, “all headings are required to have a BT unless they fall into one of the five categories of ‘orphans’” (p. 613). This means that unless you are one of five very special categories, there ought to be a broader term as to what you are described. Another assumption Olson points to is that LCSH “presumes that all catalogers will think of the same hierarchies” (p. 613). While it is important to have rules governing a classification system, it is difficult to expect all librarians using the system to come to the same conclusion for any subject heading. The rules for subject headings is asking quite a lot of the library community go ahead and make the same assumptions about a where a book belongs in the branch. Now, while this is certainly asking a lot of librarians, is it hegemonic? Our definition for hegemony refers to influence being exerted over a dominant group. I would suppose that in this instance there is a little hegemony taking place in the LCSHs. I say that, because the rules are dictating that all headings be put on the tree with a line to follow them up. There is a hierarchy in place, and as soon as a hierarchy becomes apparent then there is chain of command to follow. This ultimately puts those outside the chain of command at a disadvantage. This might be imposing because sometimes there are no good ways to get a hierarchy in place. In those instances, the rules of subject headings ask us to find “intermediate headings” to go in place of missing links. It serves the subject heading by creating fewer orphans in the subject pool, but it also requires libraries to make judgment calls about topics that they might not understand or go along with past decisions about a topic’s home on the tree, even if new information or a new interpretation of the hierarchy can be found or argued.

A second bias of the LCSHs is that everything can be classified into a single heading. While it is true that a bibliographic record can contain many subject headings, it remains that there is an assumption that some book or DVD will contain at least one heading. Since the rules of LCSHs don’t allow for the creating of new subject terms outside of the LoC, this can be an imposition to librarian that wants to assign a subject term for an item that cannot be found in the big red books. What makes this assumption about subject headings a weak argument for cultural hegemony in the system itself is the fact that while the librarian is working with a designated, controlled vocabulary, it does not by any stretch require him to always and forever use it. The great joy of classification and cataloging in a library is that there is always the option to break away from the absolute hierarchical structure of LCSHs and instead add a subject heading that follows the librarian’s line of thinking in terms of placement and access. While the LoC probably frowns on not using the controlled vocabulary (as well as some proponents of LCSHs, like Mann) it also can’t be the subject heading police all the time.

The solution to these issues with LCSHs has been mixed. On the message board for class, some students feel that moving to a keyword search would be far less hegemonic because it would not be controlling the terms of the classification. Others have the notion that regardless of the use of keyword or subject heading, the whole system is a form of hegemony because it is a group of librarians and information specialists deciding where content belongs using a classification scheme. I’m on the fence. I think that there are definitely some problems that could be associated with using a given fixed vocabulary when trying to define something as organic as information, but at the same time, I feel that while any system has the potential to create a cultural hegemony, having no system at all would be a far worse fate. In that instance, while I can feel good that my subject terms are not dictating how my users should think or how they should access their information needs, I can’t find any of the materials my patrons need because there isn’t a clear means of access. It’s a catch-22 for librarians because there is no clear way to win. I personally advocate for the continued use of LCSHs only because to abandon the system now might mean chaos for the library yet to come.

The second question we must ask ourselves about the LCSHs is what kind of assumption do these headings make about the user, and in making those assumptions, how does it exclude members of a community? Thomas Mann (2000) notes that most users would be able find exactly what they were looking for if only they knew there was an encyclopedia (good naturedly called ‘the red books’) for exactly these types of searches. What I mean to say is that the Library of Congress Subject headings assume we know how to use them without any training. Or most specifically, the system was set up with few training wheels unless you know where to go for your information. If you don’t know about the red books then you don’t know how to navigate the subject headings and thereby are swimming in a sea of information with no guide to follow. Mann is not advocating for a removal of the Headings though. In fact, the article I reference is Mann’s attempt to teach others how to best use the LCSHs and the red books to find exactly the information that they need. For the most part, the assumptions made between the LCSHs and users come from the user perspective. Mann references an incident where a journalist was looking for information on Game Shows. The journalist was looking under the subject heading “Television” however, the correct subject heading was “Game Shows” and the titles and information found under the latter were not duplicated in the former (p 119-120). Users cannot assume that looking under the broad topic will result in finding materials under the narrower topic. While this might appear to answer the final question about how these assumptions affect users, it actually relates more to this topic because in making assumptions about the subject headings we are recognizing the assumptions the subject headings make about users.

Another assumption made by the subject headings toward users is that they cover everything we could possibly think of. This is in fact a pretty accurate statement, as far as the expansive collective knowledge of the Library of Congress, but since we’re only human, we usually don’t think in those terms. Tom Steele (2009) talks about how tagging and folksonomies could be used as a means to improve the searching capabilities of users with regard to LCSHs. Another point he brings up is that the problem with controlled vocabularies is their lack of consideration for the “human element” (p. 72). He notes a humorous quote by Cory Doctorow that says, “Metadata creators (even the expert catalogers) are lazy, stupid, dishonest, and self-ignorant.” Steele goes on to quote Doctorow about a particularly interesting passage that shapes the discussion we’ve been having in class the last week. Doctorow said, “Requiring everyone to use the same vocabulary to describe their material denudes the cognitive landscape, enforces homogeneity in ideas. And that’s just not right” (p. 72). Steele and Doctorow ultimately claim that because the LCSHs are governed by controlled vocabulary, it ultimately excludes those who do not fit the “cognitive landscape” and instead awards those who think like sheep and tow the company line. Steele posits that while tagging is no more perfect than a controlled system like LCSHs, at least with tagging there is the opportunity for more access points and search terms and an inclusion of the human element into the process of metadata.

A third assumption the LCSHs make is that they will continue to be relevant to librarianship. While I myself am a huge fan of the LCSHs and the red books, many other professionals in the field are writing about a changing of the guard. More and more, the talk of metadata is about social tagging and collaborative classification. In essence, a lot of social networky, touchy feely, “let’s all just do our best” cataloging. While Mann and his compatriots are urging everyone to keep with the old system of how things run, there are new ideas popping up and some really great innovations in subject classification. One that has been floating around a lot in the literature is LibraryThing. LibraryThing is a social cataloging and classification website. Users add their own materials to their “personal bookshelf” and that then links them to other users who own the same materials. But it doesn’t stop there. Just recently, there was a LibraryThing flashmob that cataloged the White House Library for the fun of it. It might also have been the added controversy regarding the Socialist reading materials one conservative blogger found on the shelves during his White House tour and the claim that Michelle Obama put it there, but journalists have determined that the collection was started back in the Roosevelt administration and was later overseen by Jacqueline Kennedy with the help of Yale Librarian James Babb. It was during the 1960’s over 1700 books were added to the collection (Lowman, 2010, Washingtonpost.com). The point is, when a group of individuals felt the need to classify an entire library, they took the project by the toes and ran with it until it was finished. LibraryThing not only allows users to create their own bookshelves or assist with the development of other, it also links people to ideas and to their notion of how those ideas are organized. If I tag my home library with a relevant classification scheme on LibraryThing, others can see it. They can copy my idea, modify my idea or tell me my classification system is the dumbest thing in the existence of man (after my Stretch Armstrong action figure). The point is that people are at the center of classification, not the Library of Congress. LCSHs assume that we’ll keep using the system because it’s the only thing that’s available. That was the case long ago when it was more cost effective to use what the Library of Congress put out instead of doing the original cataloging. Since the advent of the digital catalog, the need, or perhaps the reliance on the Library of Congress is not as strong. Librarians are now given the option of creating classifications and subject headings that are useful and good for the collection they manage and develop, not what some think tank of librarians say halfway across the country. I think the whole notion is best described by Guy and Tonkin in Mendes et al. (2009) that “despite these problems, some see the benefits of social tagging services as creating ‘the kinds of environments in which we can evolve metadata vocabularies in a natural way’” (p. 32). Is it a good thing? We’ll have to wait and see, but for now just think about how cool it is to be a librarian right now.

To wrap up, LCSHs are a great tool. Do they sometimes enforce a cultural hegemony onto society? Probably. Does the Library of Congress enforce a pretty large culture (over 308,000 subject headings and counting) onto society? Absolutely! The real question will soon become if this will even matter in five years? Tagging is a big part of Web 2.0, and library budgets are getting cut all over the place. Perhaps the LCSHs will go the way of the dinosaur not because of a cultural shift in librarianship, but because it became too costly to maintain. We shall see.

References

Olson, H. (2004). The Ubiquitous hierarchy: an army to overcome the threat of a mob. Library Trends, 52(3), 604-615.

Mann, T. (2001). Teaching library of congress subject headings. Catalog and classification quarterly, 29(1), 117-126.

Steele, T. (2009). The new cooperative cataloging. Library hi tech, 27(1), 68-77.

Mendes, L, Skinner, J, & Skaggs, D. (2009). Subjecting the catalog to tagging. Library hi tech, 27(1), 30-41.