Subject headings and searchable notes: how catalogers improve access to Latin American collections at UNC-Chapel Hill libraries

Sara Levinson, Latin American and Iberian Cataloger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I’m going to talk about some of the ways that catalogers improve access to library collections. First I am going to talk about the collection of cordel literature which is currently growing at the UNC-CH Rare Book Collection. I will then talk about contents and summary notes, and will end by giving some information about proposing subject headings and call numbers to the Library of Congress. I will be taking many of my examples from records that I have worked on, so the examples will reflect the materials I have been cataloging for our collections.

The Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has recently acquired some Brazilian cordel pamphlets. The number of these publications coming out of Brazil is staggering, and the various institutions that are collecting them have had to make some hard choices about how they are going to be cataloged.

As they tend to arrive in fairly large numbers, and are so inexpensive that they don’t take a hefty bite from an acquisitions budget, they may be difficult to fit into the normal workflow of a cataloging department.

Some institutions have decided to handle them in an archival manner, but they aren’t really traditionally archival. It is, however, an alternative to handling a very large number of items in a given collection. Here you can see an example of the kind of information that would be included, a title devised by the archivist, and a broad description of what the collection contains.

If they are going to be handled bibliographically, one way of dealing with the problem of how to catalog them is to create a collection level record.

This also provides minimal information, again, generally under a title made up by the cataloger.

OCLC record # 769469809 has the title “A collection of 191 pieces of Brazilian literatura de cordel.” It has no contents notes, which means that there is no way of knowing the titles of any of the objects in the collection, not to mention their authors or subjects. It also lacks subject headings and a call number. This is a bit sparse even for those who are pressed for time.

Another way of handling this type of collective record is to put an explanatory note into the record, such as this record from Michigan State (OCLC #226074834)

There are subject headings added, as you can see. They are general, and refer to the collection as a whole, as does the title and note.

On a much larger scale, this record, created for mixed materials by the Library of Congress (OCLC #71060153) shows a way of grouping a very large number of related objects by a detailed descriptive note, and again, subject headings that encompass the collection as a whole.

Other records in which a cordel collection has been cataloged collectively, provide access by title and author in a contents note. This is measurably better, as the titles of the individual works are available, as well as their individual authors. The OCLC record #893113594 with the cataloger-created title of Literatura de cordel. Set 3 : chapbooks, 2010-2013 is one of those records. In

this slide, you can see the first 12 of the 76 titles. As you can see, it is a lot of work to create a record with this kind of note.

If the contents note is formatted, as it is in this example, the authors and titles should be key word searchable as titles and authors. If the note is unformatted, they still ought to be searchable, in a key-word search, as notes generally are in most library catalog systems, I believe. The decision as create contents notes that are formatted or ones that are unformatted depends mainly on two criteria: how does your system handle formatted contents notes (ours does not handle them well) and how much time do you want your cataloger to spend on the record, as adding the subfield delimiters will slow down entry of this information.

If it is decided not to catalog the cordels as a collection, but rather individually, there is not only scope for individual authors and titles, and perhaps more importantly for access,for individual subject headings and call numbers.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Rare Book Collection it was decided to catalog each title individually to as to provide access by title, author, and subject headings, but to have one call number for all of them and to use a local subject heading, Brazilian cordel literature, to tie the collection together. This is, admittedly, not as complete as if they were all assigned individual call numbers, but it does allow them to be researched as a group, while still providing access by author and by topic through subject headings.

I am going to show you just a few examples of these records which provide author access as well as subject heading access. Cordel literature covers topics that are wildly diverse, from famous people, Brazilian and otherwise; social problems; local, national, and international politics; folklore; geographical and cultural heritage; current events. This makes the adding of subject headings, I feel, of great use to creating access to their use.

These examples show one about Mestre Bimba, a famous capoeira master, the author’s view on how pedophiles ought to be treated, and his homage to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott.

If the cordels had been given individual call numbers, that would provide yet a deeper level of access, although most would most likely be listed by literary call number rather than by topic because the topics are all expressed through poetry. That, however, is a decision that an individual library would need to make when deciding how to catalog its collection.

Creating access takes cataloger time, and thus, choices must be made to use that time in ways that the individual library feels will best serve its public. One of the ways I add access to records, especially to compilations and publications from conferences is to add contents notes.

More and more of our users are using keyword searching to find information, and this is one way to ensure that there are more words for them to search.

I do not format my contents notes, as our system does not handle the formatting well, but this note does provide more access than the two subject headings for this record:

Debts, Public – Spain – History – Congresses and

Finance, Public – Spain – History – Congresses

Adding contents note is time consuming, which is why catalogers often do not add them. When possible, I add them despite that fact, because they allow people who use the catalog to find more of the information they want, and one of the things we most want to do is to improve access to our collections.

A contents note provides many more searchable words for key word searching, and also for author name searches. It also gives a broader overview of the topics covered and allows the user to hone in better on the one specific article that will prove useful in her research.

Language changes, and the words that people use to describe what they are studying or living changes with time. Using controlled vocabulary in subject headings allows us to group similar things together, but it makes it more difficult to keep up with the current “buzz words” in any particular field. These words are far more likely to appear in the titles listed in the contents notes.

A third thing that catalogers can and do do to improve access is to propose call numbers and subject headings to the Library of Congress. This is more complicated than the things that I have mentioned already because we can’t just do it ourselves. We need to get in touch with the Library of Congress and everything we suggest must undergo a rather rigorous review before it is adopted or rejected.

We may want to do this when there seems to be a gap that needs to be filled in order to describe a work that we have in hand. As the Library of Congress will not create a subject heading “on spec” but will only do so if the heading is needed to describe a published work, we usually only come to the point of trying this when we are frustrated by not being able to find a subject heading that describes what we have in hand. We often will use various subject headings to surround a subject, but sometimes even that doesn’t work very well.

The book that has prompted me most recently to brave these waters is Indigenous men and masculinities: legacies, identities, regeneration. I requested the addition of three subject headings, and am still waiting to see if they will be approved.

The headings that I wanted to use to describe the book are Indian men – Identity and Indigenous men – Identity. Since the subject heading Indigenous men didn’t exist, I needed to propose that as well. I showed that it followed the pattern of Indigenous women and of Men – Identity, and tried to support my proposal with information from the book. As of this date, I have added information to the original proposal, since they didn’t consider enough had been given, but I have not yet heard if they will add them to the subject authority file.

If the subject headings are accepted I should hear from SACO at the Library of Congress

In that case it will be added to the subject heading authority file, and will become part of the language we use in our catalogs.