Re: Political Correctness

[Dan Robinson /Indexing Services <DROBINSON@INFO.HWWILSON.COM>]

I don't think you'd want to use the 520 field for extra subject
headings. What would you do when you have a real summary or abstract
to put into the field. Also, by using that field, you might give the
appearance of summarizing the book.

A better place would be the 653: Uncontrolled subject headings  or
setting up a 69x (Local access field). For those libraries whose
systems use an authority file that you can modify, maybe adding the
older terms as See references (4xx (Authority)) would work. Sears
does that for at least the edition of the change and sometimes
continues a see reference past the next editions if the editor feels
that it would be a valid search point.

Dan Robinson
Abstracting & Indexing Services
H.W. Wilson Company
Bronx, NY
drobinson@info.hwwilson.com


> My feeling (DON'T get me started on PC!!) is that we must follow Sears (or
> LC if you use that) for subject headings, regardless what the non-library
> pundits want.  If we change willy-nilly, the great benefit of having a
> common set of cataloging terms that work everywhere is lost forever.  To me
> this is the great justification for a controlled vocabulary -- at least that
> is what I was taught.
>
> Of course, in the MARC 520 summary field (not the 600's!!) you could use
> whatever PC terms you wished and do no harm -- if your system indexes
> keywords, patrons could do a keyword search and find their favorites and the
> controlled vocab would remain untouched in the subject search fields.
>
> Just MHO!
>
> Mark Williams
> Librarian
> Colton high School
>