Genre/Form
Headings
LC is considering whether now
is a good time to review the structure of the music genre/form headings
and
possibly separate them into a hierarchical thesaurus of core vocabulary. In the LC report on the
moving image project,
the Policy office recommended that each project (music being one of
them) contribute
to a centralized genre/form thesaurus, and they also recommended that
LC
“explore new models for a community based thesaurus of
genre/form terms in
collaboration with professional organizations and other
institutions” (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/movimgenre.pdf).
Because music headings
include terms which are neither genres nor forms (medium of
performance,
language, geographical area, etc.), the discussion about a core
vocabulary for
music involves the idea of facets. There
was discussion during the conference about whether OCLC’s
FAST project might
come into play if the music community decides to move in a faceted
direction
with our genre/form project.
The
ALA report from LC included the following updates on the genre/form
project:
- Headings for motion
pictures and radio programs are now being implemented in new cataloging
at LC, and the Policy office is working on plans for revising existing
bibliographic records.
- Beginning Feb. 1, 2009,
all SACO members can contribute headings for new and revised motion
picture and radio program genre/form headings, using a form
dedicated to genre/form proposals on the SACO website.
- Five new projects have been authorized:
music, law, cartography, literature, and religion. The cartography
project is already underway.
- LC has developed a web site specifically for genre/form information, including an extensive FAQ: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genreformgeneral.html.
News from LC
Other LC announcements include the following:
- The new editions of the Library of Congress Classification schedules have now been completed.
- LC is continuing the project to make a subset of LCSH available
in SKOS format, and is developing a site within the loc.gov domain for
this project.
- The Subject Cataloging Manual will now be called the Subject Headings Manual. A new edition will be published in 2009 which will consolidate all the previous loose-leaf updates.
- To date, about 35,000 subject
validation records have been created and are available in
Classification Web, though they are not printed in the Red Books.
ALCTS-CCS-SAC Subcommittee on Genre-Form Implementation
Ideas discussed during the meeting included:
- Geographic subdivions are proving contentious, particularly in terms
of their meaning regarding country of production for films versus setting of
films. Perhaps the community should move
on to other projects and then go back to the question of geographic
subdivisions.
- How should we differentiate performances which are
filmed versus actual films (movies, etc.)? Performances are events, whereas films are not. For example “Opera films” generally refers to
operas which have been made into movies, but “Filmed operas” refers to staged
operas that are filmed.
- Many genre thesauri include terms for formats. In RDA, carrier type should be compatible
with genre/form terms. Perhaps as part
of the project, a list of carrier types/format terms could be made and those
terms established as 155 genre/form headings.
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Last updated January 21, 2010