Subject & genre terms

Summary: Information about and local practices for the various controlled vocabularies available to catalogers for describing the subject, form, or genre of a work.

General guidance

In most cases, terms from the LCSH and LCGFT vocabs should be applied to all resources where appropriate, in accordance with LC instructions for their use. See the LCSH and LCGFT sections below for details.

The other controlled vocabularies in use at MSUL are listed below. These are not universally required, but all except MeSH are recommended for appropriate situations.

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)
• Homosaurus
• LC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (LCTGM)
• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
• Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Combined Vocabularies (RBMSCV)

When applying these vocabularies, catalogers should consult all relevant documentation about correct application, and rely on their own judgment when terms outside of LCSH are appropriate. Some of these situations include:

• When LCSH lacks terms for more specialized materials like maps, medical materials, rare books, graphic images, etc.
• When inadequacies in LCSH prevent ethical or respectful description

LCSH (standard)

Guidelines

• Assign at least 1 and no more than 10 terms to a resource
• Assign terms for concepts that comprise 20% or more of a resource's content
• The first subject heading should reflect the predominant topic of the work, and is used to determine the resource's classification
• For works without one predominant topic, assign subject headings in the order mentioned by the resource
  • Example title: Classicism in Art, Music, and Literature
  • Assign subject headings in this order = Classicism in art, Classicism in music, etc.
  • Resource will be classed in the Ns
• For biographies:
  • Assign name heading or AAP as first subject heading
  • Next, assign a topical subject heading for the biographee's field of activity; this forms the basis of classification
  • Assign other terms for a biographee's associated country, organization, etc., as appropriate
• When creating subject strings, chronological subdivisions always come after topical and geographic subdivisions; form subdivisions are always last, if present. There are three usual patterns to subject strings:

  • TOPIC – TOPIC – PLACE – TIME – FORM

  • TOPIC – PLACE – TOPIC – TIME – FORM

    • Use when the topical subdivision cannot be subdivided geographically
  • PLACE – TOPIC – TIME – FORM
    • Use when a geographic term is the main heading

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LCGFT (standard)

Guidelines

• Assign any applicable terms even if similar terms are present in LCSH subject strings
• Special efforts should be made to assign GFTs for:
  • Non-book formats such as music, maps, AV materials, kits, etc.
  • Fictional works, comics, graphic novels, poetry, drama, etc.
  • Physical attributes like bindings, inscriptions, forms of presentation, etc.

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AAT (use in specific cases)

Guidelines

• Scope of the AAT: "...art, architecture, and other visual cultural heritage, including related disciplines dealing with visual works, such as archaeology and conservation, where the works are of the type collected by art museums and repositories for visual cultural heritage, or that are architecture."
• Many of the terms in the AAT can be found in other more standard vocabularies; when this is the case, there is no need to assign AAT terms that are redundant to LCSH, LCGFT, or RBMSCV terms.
• Best used for artistic or visual materials, when specific terminology is not available in the LC or RBMS vocabularies.

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Homosaurus (regular use encouraged)

Additional resources

• CMS presentation with overview and application instructions (by Ruth Ann Jones)
  
• More detailed training webinars: https://www.orbiscascade.org/programs/scts/technical-services/documentation/homosaurus-training-resources-and-faq/

Guidelines

• Assign for any resource about people or topics relevant to the LGBTQ+ community
• Use in combination with LCSH terms
  • Where LCSH terms may be considered harmful, choose a more general term from the LCSH hierarchy and use Homosaurus terms to express more specificity
• Assign even if somewhat repetitive with chosen LCSH

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LCTGM (use in specific cases)

Guidelines

• Scope of the TGM: "...a tool for indexing visual materials by subject and by genre/format... includes more than 7,000 subject terms and 650 genre/format terms to index types of photographs, prints, design drawings, ephemera, and other pictures."
• Best used for visual materials, when specific terminology for the resource is not available in the LC or RBMS vocabularies.

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MeSH (infrequently used)

Guidelines

• In general, MSUL catalogers do not assign MeSH headings; this is a highly specialized vocabulary and requires additional training.
• MeSH terms come into our catalog via copy, often from records created by the National Library of Medicine and other medical libraries.

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RBMSCV

• Previous versions of this newly combined vocabulary permitted subdivisions; this is no longer correct national practice, but MSUL is going to develop a custom local practice in the 2023/2024 academic year
• As of 10/3/23, catalogers may continue to assign RBMS terms as they have been doing in recent years
• When custom procedures are ready, training will be provided in CMS and shared here

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