The End of LCSH? Provocative Report Stirs Up Cataloging Discussion

-- Library Journal, 4/24/2006

Should the Library of Congress (LC) jettison Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the longstanding professional taxonomy? That's one of the provocative suggestions in a new report announced Tuesday by the LC. But "The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools," commissioned by LC and written by Associate University Librarian Karen Calhoun of Cornell University, was already making waves weeks earlier, thanks to a critical review of a draft of her paper, written for AFSCME 2910, the Library of Congress Professional Guild, by Thomas Mann (author of The Oxford Guide to Library Research). The summary in LC's press release doesn't mention LCSH, but states that libraries should reduce the costs of producing catalogs; enrich the catalog with Amazon-like features like reviews and images; and offer rush delivery of materials and other services. Mann criticized the premises behind the report, warning of "serious negative consequences for the capacity of research libraries to promote scholarly research."

"Libraries are going to move at many different speeds," Calhoun said, noting that the members of the Association of Research Libraries for which the report is intended could participate in three potential strategies. The first, "Extend," would involve improved interfaces and simplification of cataloging for libraries maintaining a local catalog for a locally-housed and -circulated collection. For the second, "Expand," shared regional catalogs could serve more users. For the most ambitious strategy, "Leadership," she said, "There is no fully realized version anywhere. I think the Google Five [Stanford, Univ. of Michigan, Harvard, Oxford, and New York Public Library] have some elements of what it's going to take." An aggregated supply of library resources on search engines like Google could then support speedy delivery of materials in multiple formats, include digital and print-on-demand. LC Associate Librarian Deanna Marcum said, "Tom [Mann] quite rightly points to the superiority of doing searches the library way." However, she said, "Instead of trying to force the users into our systems, are there ways we can take our vast resources to where the users are?" She added, "I can't imagine a scenario in which we end LCSH completely. I think we will be trying to figure out what part of the work we do adds value and is meaningful to our user community."