Richard et al.,
I wanted to clarify something about my question "Does anyone have an opinion
about the value, in the networked information world, of the hierarchical LC
subject format I described ("Steel Industry--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh.")"?
We do buy in to the idea of using LCSH as an authority for subject terms, for
the reasons that Richard stated. What to me is questionable is the insistence
on the pre-coordinated format in all of its arcane requirements. Recently, for
example, I was asked by the cataloguer to correct some subject headings in our
database because a) the heading was missing the period at the end, b) the
second word of a two word phrase was inappropriately capitalized (Steel
Industry should have been Steel industry), c) one of the two hyphens was
missing, d) "Pittsburgh, PA" should have been written "Pittsburgh, Pa." (with
the dot at the end!).
For internal use (within the museum) these formatting subtleties are entirely
irrelevant since our collections management system is blind to case and
punctuation. It doesn't matter whether you query for PA or Pa., you will get
the same results either way. It also does not matter to the database whether
the terms are "properly" strung together or listed separately.
What I would like to know is, are there good arguments for maintaining this
kind of consistency in the internet environment? If there is, it would be
easier to bear the extra effort it takes to conform; if not, it seems like a
waste of time and resources, with no real payoff in the end.
If we did away with the pre-coordinated, hyper-formatted version of LCSH, and
went to a format of single terms, we would still likely use the LCSH as a
vocabulary control, to maintain consistency in the use of subject terms. We do
understand how critical that would be.
If we were ever to pursue a social tagging strategy, I would imagine that the
tags would be stored either somewhere "between" the catalogue itself and the
public interface, as I think Jennifer Trant said earlier in this thread, or, in
another field in the catalogue itself, designated for this purpose, so as not
to overlap the social (relatively uncontrolled) vocabulary with the
cataloguer's (LCSH etc. controlled) vocabulary.
Richard Urban wrote:
The problem that I see in these discussions is that those not
steeped in the
cataloging tradition don't often see the LCSH as a larger
social system of
collaboratively creating a common set of terms. There are, no
doubt,
challenges with using LCSH that derive from what LCSH is. (And
I'm going
out on a limb here. LCSH isn't covered in my cataloging class
until next
week....corrections welcome) LCSH subject headings aren't just
made up willy
nilly, they're based on the concept of "literary warrant" or
that the terms
used are actually represented in the body of materials being
described.
For bibliographic texts there's a leading organization and a
large group of
users, following a common format that debate the
addition/deletion and
change of terms based on the bibliographic materials they see.
I'm not
exactly sure how visual materials feed into this process, but
the bulk of
LCSH is likely to be based on texts, rather than images. It
often looks like
madness, but there is method to it.
The question seems to suggest whether we can/should develop a
"visual
literary warrant" for describing the "ofness" and "aboutness"
of the
materials we're describing. Things like Cataloging Cultural
Objects (CCO)
are an important step towards that goal because they provide
guidance and
some liberal constraints on what kinds of controlled
vocabularies are used
for subject description. LCSH is not a magic bullet, but an
appropriate
controlled vocabulary is going to offer some advantages over
"keywords".
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