Suggested Subject Headings by the Library of Congress
If you’re looking for something in the library, where do you start? Our website has a search box currently just to the left of Shakespeare’s nose. Type in the title, or the author if you know it. You’ll be directed to a list that hopefully contains the exact item, with similar items as well. How did that happen? Even if the title doesn’t exactly describe what the item is about (for example, “The 1619 Project”), there are keywords inside the record that group items together by their subject (African Americans and History).
The Library of Congress, rule-maker for all U.S. libraries, approves subject headings to describe books and other items. (Subject headings work just like keywords.) Catalogers use these subject headings to find call numbers for books, so you can browse a shelf online or in person and find books on the same subject together.
Since libraries always change with the times, new subjects are regularly approved by the editorial meeting of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division at the Library of Congress. Currently under consideration are the following:
- 78 rpm records - This is a very distant memory.
- Anger in old age - It happens more than you’d expect.
- Apocalypse in popular culture - Necessary, I think.
- Counterspeech - Broader term, Freedom of speech. Here’s a video from Nadine Strossen, author of "Hate: Why we Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship" on the use of counter-speech.
- Choral novels - Works of fiction told from different points of views. For collections of stand-alone short stories that interrelate and create a larger whole, see Linked stories. I enjoy short story collections that feature the same characters. Now I know what to call them!
- Cruising (Sexual behavior) in art - Well, this went downhill fast.
- Ethmostigmus rubripes - Used for Giant centipede, which is over a foot long. Yikes!
- Evidence-based policy - I can’t believe this isn’t already a thing.
- Feminist poetry - Male authors – Hmmm. Is there that much? I’d hope so.
- Furniture, Midcentury modern - A definite yes!
- Gender dysphoria - As opposed to Gender identity disorder, to emphasize not the identity but the distress arising from the sense of incongruence. The suggested addition is the broader term, Distress (Psychology).
- Heroines in the theater - Yes!
- Immersive art experiences - Meaning, works on experiences which fuse art and technology to bring life to famous works of art, as well as new visual works using similar methods. I’ve actually looked for a heading like this to catalog art books.
- Live looping (Music) - The performance technique of recording repeating musical parts that can be used to build all or part of a musical arrangement in real time. I’m sure we need this.
- Molly dancing - I thought this was some kind of drug-inspired club dancing, but Wikipedia says it’s a form of English Morris dance, traditionally done by out-of-work ploughboys in midwinter in the 19th century. Seems oddly specific, but okay.
- Music in refugee camps - Music in the direst situation, an attempt to heal and survive.
- Podcast journalism, broader term Podcasting - Yep, we need this one.
- Right to access restroom, used for Right to access a toilet, broader term Human rights - Not only in the sense of gender-nonconforming people, but I’m also thinking of impoverished areas of the world where folks have no access to toilets at all.
- Siblings of suicide victims - Sadly, probably necessary.
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in education - Such as the absent-minded professor?
- Taxidermy in motion pictures - I’ll start. “Psycho.” Your turn.
- Transmisogyny, broader terms Transphobia and Misogyny - The intersectional violence and marginalization faced by trans women, trans fem(me)s, and non-binary people assigned male at birth.
- Zither teachers, broader term Music teachers - Sounds like a speech test for lisping, but okay.
by Jan Hardy, Library Specialist. Feature image by sarina gr on Unsplash