[MinervaCats] Cataloging Tip: Children's subject headings

[Ellen Conway]

Dear Catalogers,

At recent Cataloging User's Group meetings we have had some discussion
about the issue of LC Children's Subject Headings.  As you know by
now, the Library of Congress has discontinued their practice of
maintaining and updating these headings.  In order to maintain
authority control, libraries that previously used LC Children's
headings will now need to use regular LC headings for children's
materials.

Over the next month I plan to begin processing Minerva records that
currently contain LC Children's headings by removing those headings
and replacing them with regular ones.  This project will take some
time to complete, but I do not expect that it will cause any problems
for anyone cataloging for Minerva libraries.  However, it is
absolutely necessary for Minerva catalogers adding new records to
immediately stop using the Children's headings.  Whether you are doing
original cataloging or importing records from outside sources, you
must use regular LC headings from now on.

I've heard from numerous catalogers who are uncertain of what this
means and/or are confused by the process of switching from one set of
headings to another.  For those of you who need it, I would like to
give you a short review of how this works.

The LC children's headings were a specific set of headings that appear
in bibs with the 2nd indicator "1".  That indicator is the factor that
identified the heading as a children's heading.  For this reason, a
subdivision including the word "juvenile" was not needed.
Subdivisions would only need to state "fiction" if applicable.

However, since we can't use children's headings anymore, we must use
regular LC headings, which are identified with the 2nd indicator "0".
A subject search on "whales" for example will give you results
including all items in the catalog using the heading "whales", both
adult and juvenile.  In order to differentiate between the 2, the
subdivisions "Juvenile fiction" and "Juvenile nonfiction" are needed
for children's materials.

For most subjects the authority record for juvenile and adult
materials is the same, which simplifies the process of adding headings
to a record.  But because there are a fair number of subjects for
which the children's authority and the regular authority are different
it will be very important to check those authorities before assigning
headings.  This can be done by going to the Library of Congress
authority search website, http://authorities.loc.gov/, or by
right-clicking a heading and selecting "verify heading".

If you need to bring in a record from Z39.50 try to find a good one
that already has regular LC headings in it.  If necessary you can copy
and paste subjects from one remote record to another.  In my
experience the databases that are most likely to provide solid records
with appropriate headings are CW MARS, OhioLink, Prospector, and
NOBLE, though I'm sure that everyone has their own favorites.

Thanks for your cooperation with this project, and please let me know
if you have any further questions.



Ellen M. Conway
Maine InfoNet Cataloging Consultant
247-3514, cell ph. 329-5443