LibGuides: Introduction to Critical Cataloging: Readings & Resources

Recent Articles

Critical Views of LCSH, 1990–2001: The Third Bibliographic Essay, by Karen S. Fischer.

Abstract: This classified critical bibliography continues the work initiated by Monika Kirtland and Pauline Cochrane, and furthered by Steven Blake Shubert. Kirtland and Cochrane published a bibliography surveying the literature critical of LCSH from 1944-1979 titled “Critical Views of LCSH–Library of Congress Subject Headings, A Bibliographic and Bibliometric Essay.” Shubert analyzed another decade of literature in his article titled “Critical Views of LCSH–Ten Years Later: A Bibliographic Essay.” This current bibliography compiles the next twelve years of critical literature from 1990-2001. Persistent concerns of the past fifty-seven years include inadequate syndetic structure, currency or bias of the headings, and lack of specificity in the subject heading list. New developments and research are in the areas of subdivisions, mapping, indexer inconsistency, and post-coordination. LCSH must become more flexible and easier to use in order to increase its scalability and interoperability as an online subject searching tool.

Fischer, Karen S. Critical Views of LCSH, 1990–2001: The Third Bibliographic Essay, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2005):63-109.

Records, Responsibility, and Power: An Overview of Cataloging Ethics, by Jennifer M. Martin.

Abstract: Ethics are principles which provide a framework for making decisions that best reflect a set of values. Cataloging carries power, so ethical decision-making is crucial. Because cataloging requires decision-making in areas that differ from other library work, cataloging ethics are a distinct subset of library ethics. Cataloging ethics draw on the primary values of serving the needs of users and providing access to materials. Cataloging ethics are not new, but they have received increased attention since the 1970s. Major current issues in cataloging ethics include the creation of a code of ethics; ongoing debate on the appropriate role of neutrality in cataloging misleading materials and in subject heading lists and classification schemes; how and to what degree considerations of privacy and self-determination should shape authority work; and whether or not our current cataloging codes are sufficiently user-focused.

Jennifer M. Martin. Records, Responsibility, and Power: An Overview of Cataloging Ethics, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 59, no. 2-3 (2021): 281-304.

Shawne D. Miksa. Cataloging Principles and Objectives: History and Development, by Shawne D. Miksa.

Abstract: Cataloging principles and objectives guide the formation of cataloging rules governing the organization of information within the library catalog, as well as the function of the catalog itself. Changes in technologies wrought by the internet and the web have been the driving forces behind shifting cataloging practice and reconfigurations of cataloging rules. Modern cataloging principles and objectives started in 1841 with the creation of Panizzi’s 91 Rules for the British Museum and gained momentum with Charles Cutter’s Rules for Descriptive Cataloging (1904). The first Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) was adopted in 1961, holding their place through such codifications as AACR and AACR2 in the 1970s and 1980s. Revisions accelerated starting in 2003 with the three original FR models. The Library Reference Model (LRM) in 2017 acted as a catalyst for the evolution of principles and objectives culminating in the creation of Resource Description and Access (RDA) in 2013.

Miksa, Shawne D. Cataloging Principles and Objectives: History and Development. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2021): 97-128.

Defining, Assessing, and Rethinking Quality Cataloging, Karen Snow

Abstract: Definitions of “quality cataloging” may differ from cataloger to cataloger and from institution to institution. If an objective definition of quality is elusive, how can an institution assess the quality of cataloging work? This article discusses definitions of quality cataloging in the literature and different ways it has been evaluated and measured. Academic library catalogers' perceptions of quality cataloging will also be explored, as well as how these perceptions are formed. The article concludes by suggesting ways cataloging departments can approach the creation and evaluation of quality cataloging in an ethical manner.

Snow, Karen. Defining, Assessing, and Rethinking Quality Cataloging, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 55, no. 7-8 (2017): 438-455.

Listservs

This is a list of listservs, which are communities that are email based, related to critical cataloging or education on cataloging.

Books

Prejudices and Antipathies: a tract on the LC subject heads concerning people by Sanford Berman; Eric Moon (Foreword by)
Call Number: Z695.1.S6 B47 1993

ISBN: 9780899508283

Publication Date: 1993-02-01

Originally published in 1971, Prejudices and Antipathies discussed the lingering bias of the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Since its publication, many of the recommendations made by Berman have been embraced, but there are still issues that arise from Library of Congress headings.
Cruising the Library: perversities in the organization of knowledge by Melissa Adler
Call Number: Z695 .A25 2017

ISBN: 9780823276356

Publication Date: 2017-04-03

"Cruising the Library offers a highly innovative analysis of the history of sexuality and categories of sexual perversion through a critical examination of the Library of Congress and its cataloging practices. Taking the publication of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemologies of the Closet as emblematic of the Library's inability to account for sexual difference, Melissa Adler embarks upon a detailed critique of how cataloging systems have delimited and proscribed expressions of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race in a manner that mirrors psychiatric and sociological attempts to pathologize non-normative sexual practices and civil subjects. Taking up a parallel analysis, Adler utilizes Roderick A. Ferguson's Aberrations in Black as another example of how the Library of Congress fails to account for, and thereby "buries," difference. She examines the physical space of the Library as one that encourages forms of governmentality as theorized by Michel Foucault while also allowing for its utopian possibilities. Finally, she offers a brief but highly illuminating history of the Delta Collection. Likely established before the turn of the twentieth century and active until its gradual dissolution in the 1960s, the Delta Collection was a secret archive within the Library of Congress that housed materials confiscated by the United States Post Office and other federal agencies. These were materials deemed too obscene for public dissemination or general access. Adler reveals how the Delta Collection was used to regulate difference and squelch dissent in the McCarthy era while also linking it to evolving understandings of so-called perversion in the scientific study of sexual difference. Sophisticated, engrossing, and highly readable, Cruising the Library provides us with a critical understanding of library science, an alternative view of discourses around the history of sexuality, and an analysis of the relationship between governmentality and the cataloging of research and information--as well as categories of difference--in American culture "-- Provided by publisher
Radical Cataloging by K. R. Roberto
Call Number: Z693 .R33 2008

ISBN: 9780786435432

Publication Date: 2008-04-19

This collection of essays addresses the state of cataloging in the world of librarianship. The contributors address topics ranging from criticisms of the state of the profession and traditional Library of Congress cataloging to methods of making cataloging more inclusive and helpful to library users

LibGuides

A selection of libguides/guides that are related to what Critical Cataloging is and its applications. This includes discussing the Dewey Decimal System, the Library of Congress Classification System, subject headings and more.