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Sandy Berman Subject Headings
Today instead of picking apart the Library of Congress Subject Headings Weekly List, I'm going through Sandy Berman's personal scorecard, an older version of which can be found on his website. I am using a version dated April 15, 2008. Stay tuned for an html version on the Radical Reference site, where there will also be info on a coordinated day of submitting subject heading recommendations to LC, on April 27, 2008.
This is a selective rundown. Look at the pdf if you want to see the whole thing.
Welcome to the Catalog!
DILDOS
(cross reference to CIGARS, anyone?)
KRUMPING
(From the name, I assumed krumping was something sexual, but per Wikipedia, which provides the best definition I can find, it's "an urban African American street dance." And come on, Sandy has been recommending ANAL FISTING as a subject heading since September 2005, so you can see how I might go there.)
LESBIAN MOTORCYCLISTS
(Sandy recommended LESBIAN BIKERS, but I can see LC's point, even if it doesn't have the same zing.)
PUBLIC SEX
(insert Larry Craig or other member of congress accused of sexual impropriety joke here)
SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM and THIRD-WAVE FEMINISM
(he began suggesting the terms and sending back-up material to LC in 2005)
WHITES--RACE IDENTITY--STUDY AND TEACHING
(Sandy's version was WHITENESS STUDIES, but what does he know about accessible terminology?!?)
Suggested but not Implemented
ANARCHA-FEMINISM
(you definitely don't want members of Congress to be able to search this term easily!)
ANARCHO-PRIMITIVISM
(see previous note)
ANTI-ARABISM, also FEAR OF ISLAM/FEAR OF MUSLIMS/HATRED OF ISLAM/HATRED OF MUSLIMS/ISLAMIC PHOBIA/ISLAMPHOBIA (cross-references to ISLAMPHOBIA)
(they should totally adopt this SH, and then track who uses it and send them to Guantanamo)
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, 1915-1923 (replacing ARMENIAN MASSACRES, 1915-1923)
(some people are so sensitive!)
BEARDED WOMEN
(I was hoping he'd started on this one after attending my wedding, but it wasn't until 2007 that he pitched it)
BUTCH AND FEMME (LESBIANISM)
CLOSETED LESBIANS
(I seriously don't know what sanctioned LCSH you would apply for this. The record for Beyond the Closet : the Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life provides GAYS --IDENTITY and LESBIANS --IDENTITY, which aren't irrelevant, but they don't really express closet, which might be a term important to more members of Congress than we know about.)
DRAG QUEENS, also DRAG KINGS
(currently cross-referenced under FEMALE IMPERSONATORS and MALE IMPERSONATORS, respectively, which may have been appropriate terms...thirty years ago)
FOLKSONOMY
(an ironic treat for those of y'all that are ready to abandon controlled vocabulary)
FREEGANISM
GENDERQUEERS
(Ha! They haven't even adopted QUEER or QUEERS yet.)
SOUSVEILLANCE
THEOFASCISM
WATERBOARDING
(no surprise that Congress's library hasn't adopted this term!)
amanda:
I always thought it was krunking. Shows what I know.
Paul Weiss, Library of Congress:
It is important to understand that the Library of Congress establishes new headings only as they are needed for a new item that we are cataloging. That is the reason why headings such as Waterboarding, Folksonomy, Freeganism, Genderqueers, Sousveillance, etc., have not yet been established. We have not yet cataloged any books on these topics and therefore have had no reason to establish them. We don't pull topics out of thin air and establish them as headings. The new headings that we establish are directly related to items that are being added to our collection.