LCSH Policy Issues
Historically, issues have revolved around the terms employed to describe racial or ethnic groups. Notable has been the terms used to describe African-Americans. Until the 1990s, the LCSH administrators had a strict policy of not changing terms for a subject category. This was enforced to tighten and eliminate the duplication or confusion that might arise if subject headings were changed. Therefore, one term to describe African-American topics in LCSH was ‘Afro-American’ long after that term lost currency and acceptance in the population. LCSH decided to allow some alteration of terms in 1996 to better reflect the needs and access of library users. Nevertheless, many common terms, or ‘natural language’ terms are not used in LCSH, and may in effect limit the ability for users to locate items. There is a growing tradition of research in Library and Information Science faculties about the cultural and gender biases that affect the terms used in LCSH, which in turn may limit or deprive library users access to information stored and disseminated in collections. A notable American Library Science scholar on this subject is Sanford Berman.
Read more about this topic: Library Of Congress Subject Headings
Famous quotes containing the words policy and/or issues:
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)