GEN: Redundant subject headings

[Lawrence Newton <lwnewton@YAHOO.COM>]

        I know this issue doesn't rank up there with
important things like who our next president will be,
or what happened to Curious George's tail, but it
really bothers me:
        Our school district purchases cataloging records from
venxors, rather than using centralized processing
(something else I've been complaining about for
years).  My problem is with the quality of the MARC
records we get.  Many of the problems stem from the
eccentric quality of the CIP records, I realize, but
my main complaint is with the subject headings; more
than one company (and I can name names) gives the LC
children's, the LC adult's, and the Sears subject
headings, all in the same record.
        I get records with things like "CATS--FICTION",
"CATS--FICTION--SEARS" and "CATS--FICTION--JUVENILE
LITERATURE" all in the same record.  For one thing, my
young patrons, not being indoctrinated into the
minutiae of cataloging lore, wonder what a department
store has to do with a cat story.  I think it is
confusing, getting three "hits", all for the same
book.
        Our cataloging specifications specifically state that
we want only LC children's headings, but the jobbers
include them all anyway.  How much trouble could it be
to program only one set of headings for each customer?
 Maybe one of the vendors could address this.
        Am I being nitpicky, or does this bother anybody
else?
        Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can go back
to worrying about important things, like why the
Miller's Daughter in Rumplestiltskin would agree to
marry a jerk who's threatened to kill her three times.
. .

=====
Lawrence Newton, Librarian
Carnegie Elem. School,
Houston (TX) ISD
lwnewton@yahoo.com

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