[SAC16-MID/4]
Library of Congress Report on Subject Cataloging
ALA ALCTS CCS Subject Analysis Committee (SAC)
Midwinter Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts
January 10, 2016
Submitted by Janis L. Young
LC Policy and Standards Division
SAC Liaison
The full briefing document for Library of Congress staff attending ALA is available on the LC website at
http://www.loc.gov/ala/mw-2016-update.html. It consists of information about all Library service units,
divisions, and offices, and covers initiatives undertaken since the ALA’s Annual Conference in San
Francisco, California, in June 2015.
GENERAL
Library Booth. The Library of Congress Exhibit Booth is no. 1531 in the Boston Convention Center.
Personnel Changes. The following personnel changes have occurred since the Annual Conference in San
Francisco.
 Dr. James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, retired on September 30, 2015, after 42 years of
federal service including 28 years with the Library. Dr. Billington was the 13th Librarian of Congress.
David S. Mao, Deputy Librarian of Congress, was named acting Librarian of Congress. Robert R.
Newlen is the Library’s Chief of Staff.
 Bernard A. “Bud” Barton was appointed Chief Information Officer, effective September 8, 2015.
 Roberta I. Shaffer was appointed Acting Law Librarian of Congress, effective October 5, 2015.
 Joan S. Weeks, a senior instructor in the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division and
longtime leader in ALA, was appointed head of the Near East Section, African and Middle Eastern
Division, effective October 4, 2015.
 Constance A. Carter, head of the Science Reference Section, Science, Technology, and Business
Division, retired on December 31, 2015, after 50 years of Library service.
Term of the Librarian of Congress. S.2162, the Librarian of Congress Succession Modernization Act of
2015, was passed by Congress on October 26, 2015 and signed by President Obama on November 5,
2015. The law limits the term of the Librarian of Congress to ten years. The Librarian may be
reappointed.
Organizational Realignment. On May 18, 2015, Dr. James H. Billington announced a realignment plan to
better position some of the Library’s programs to support its institutional vision. The new organizational
structure took effect on October 1, 2015, at the start of fiscal 2016. The new structure strengthens the
Library’s information technology and other support functions, elevates the outreach function,
consolidates digital and analog collection management, provides a better overall support structure for
staff, improves overall management and delivers continuous service improvements to the Library’s
customers.
Copyright Office Strategic Plan. The Copyright Office published a new strategic plan, “Positioning the
United States Copyright Office for the Future,” on December 1, 2015. It presents six major goals
covering technology, services, staffing, and administrative practice and discusses a number of funding
strategies. The plan applies to the years 2016 through 2020. “At a time when there is an exponential
increase in the ways we can create, distribute, and consume copyrighted works, neither the Copyright
Office nor the copyright laws can stand still,” Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante stated upon the
plan’s release. “This strategic plan is not a magic bullet for the future, but it is transparent, flexible, and
innovative. If implemented, it will transform the Copyright Office into a model for 21st-century
government.”
The plan is available on the Copyright Office’s web site, http://www.copyright.gov.
Additional Service Copies. In August 2013, the Librarian of Congress approved a number of
recommendations related to additional service copies of monographs in the collections. The primary
recommendation was to process and retain only one copy of United States monographs in the general
collections, rather than two, which had been the traditional practice. Fiscal 2015 was the first year for
full implementation of the new policy, and the benefits anticipated upon adoption of the policy began to
be realized.
During the year, the Collections Access, Loan and Management Division withdrew 93,806 total items
from the collections. In addition, an estimated 71,000 newly-received items were not added to the
classified collections during the FY as a result of the new policy. In total, approximately 165,000
volumes were either withdrawn or not added to the collections as a result of the new policy. That
equates to an estimated 2.6 linear miles of shelf space.
A goal of the program was to find a worthwhile use for the retrospective volumes that would be
withdrawn from the Library’s existing collections. The Library has now begun transferring large
shipments of books to the nonprofit organizations Books for Africa and Bridge to Asia. The feedback
from both organizations has been very positive, and we expect these two relationships to continue.
In May, the Deputy Librarian approved the Law Library’s implementation of the additional service
copies policy.
Integrated Library System. The Library continues to add enhancements to the new user interface to the
Library of Congress Online Catalog at catalog.loc.gov. In 2015 the ILS Program Office incorporated its
open URL resolver, called FindIt!, into the record displays for books, serials and integrating resources.
Catalog users can click on the FindIt! button to discover all the options for access to titles as licensed
content in the Library’s E-Resources Catalog or other sources.
In December 2015 the Library retired the old user interface to the LC Online Catalog. The current
interface has all the functionality of the old version, including context-sensitive help pages.
In September 2015, the ILS Program Office implemented Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology in
the LC Online Catalog. SSL is a commonly used cryptographic protocol designed to protect
communication over the Internet. This encryption technology ensures the privacy, integrity, and
authenticity of web site communication, thus securing the user's OPAC session to prevent
eavesdropping and tampering. All OPAC sessions now use the https://catalog.loc.gov instead of
http://catalog.loc.gov. Users will see a small padlock icon preceding the URL in the address bar of most
browsers. Existing URL links to the LC Online Catalog will be seamlessly redirected from http to https.
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GENERAL CATALOGING
ABA Retirements.
 Ana Cristán, Cooperative Cataloging Program Specialist, retired from PSD on September 3, 2015
after 35 years of federal service (30 years at the Library of Congress). Notable contributions from
Ana’s time in PSD include development work on the Virtual International Authority File, Latin
American outreach via cataloging training and documentation, RDA development and training, and
automated enhancements to the LC/NACO authority file.
 Law Section Head Gabe Horchler announced that he plans to retire on February 20th 2016, after 47
years of federal service, two in the U.S. Army and forty-five at the Library of Congress. An open
posting to fill the Law Section Head position will be announced in the spring of 2016.
 Cassandra Harris, a longtime member of the PSD Data Integrity Section, retired in October.
ABA Vacancy Announcements. The ABA Directorate has permission to fill approximately 30 vacancies
from open postings—not limited to internal applicants—in 2015-16. Every division has permission to fill
one or more vacancies, and the vacancies will be announced on the USAJOBS web site and the Library’s
web site as the application periods open. Most of the positions to be filled are for professional librarians
and may carry specific language requirements.
The Policy and Standards Division will be posting for two policy specialists and one assistant editor.
The pool for the policy specialists is limited to existing Library Services staff, while the assistant editor is
an open posting.
Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME). This initiative is an investigation of the emerging
Linked Data environment for sharing of bibliographic descriptions that currently use the MARC Format.
Documentation of the project is available from the BIBFRAME web site, http://www.loc.gov/bibframe.
In fiscal 15, the Library of Congress continued development of the Bibliographic Framework model and
vocabulary to replace MARC 21 as a cataloging metadata standard in order to reap the benefits of newer
technology, particularly data linking. The Library built on the work and tools developed in fiscal 2014: a
stable version of the vocabulary, data entry editing tool, and transformation tool that converts MARC
records to BIBFRAME descriptions. These were updated and combined with other new components to
support a BIBFRAME Pilot that enables input of native BIBFRAME descriptions. The Pilot was
implemented by ABA at the end of September 2015. The following tools and components contribute to
the Pilot and to the encouragement of experimentation with BIBFRAME by the community, as generally
they are made available for download on the software sharing site, GitHub:
BIBFRAME Infrastructure. In fiscal 2015 NDMSO began the process of revamping servers and
systems to handle new traffic loads anticipated for linked data resolution, label lookup, and other
services related to the BIBFRAME project and the linked data service, id.loc.gov. An upgrade to the
MarkLogic datastore server to 8.0 was purchased, to allow for security updates and the inclusion of
native handling of RDF triples in the database, as well as to allow for the possibility of using Javascript
for various components of the system, not only xQuery. This effort is continuing in fiscal 2016 as we
install the upgrade and begin to take advantage of its new features. The currently installed version of
MarkLogic (5) was used to support the BIBFRAME Pilot.
BIBFRAME Editor (BFE). Development of the BIBFRAME Editor continued in 2015, and was
integrated with profiles provided by the Profile Editor. Lookups were also developed for resources
within id.loc.gov that were needed by the Editor. The enhanced BIBFRAME Editor was successfully
introduced in the BIBFRAME Pilot to develop descriptions of library resources using the BIBFRAME
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model and vocabulary. Version 0.2 of the editor was prepared for release; see
https://github.com/lcnetdev/bfe.
BIBFRAME Profile Editor. A BIBFRAME Profile Editor, which was needed to make the BFE flexible for
use with different forms of material, was delivered by a contractor in February 2015. It enabled creation
and editing of BIBFRAME profiles for use with the BFE in support of the BIBFRAME Pilot. Version 1.1.1
was released to the public in July 2015 (https://github.com/lcnetdev/profile-edit).
BIBFRAME Discovery Interface. Influx Library Systems was contracted by NDMSO to build a proof-ofconcept implementation of an open-source based discovery interface to the BIBFRAME vocabulary.
MARC records were converted to BIBFRAME using the existing marc2bibframe conversion application. A
docker container with an Elasticsearch search engine, Blazegraph SPARQL endpoint, FEDORA Commons
datastore with a front end UI, developed using Python 3.x. Version 0.1, was released in August 2015 for
experimentation with BIBFRAME by the community (https://github.com/lcnetdev/bibframe-catalog ).
BIBFRAME output from Metaproxy. A contract was let in fiscal 2014 to add the MARC transformation
software to Metaproxy, a tool that is used by LC to enable its Integrated Library System to correctly
process Z39.50 and SRU protocol queries and return records in MARCXML, MODS, and other data
exchange formats. BIBFRAME was added to the possible output formats in 2014, but at the end of fiscal
2015 it was awaiting installation at the Library.
Metaproxy Enhancement. In fiscal 2015 LC contracted with IndexData to augment Metaproxy to
process SRU searches against a BIBFRAME-based database and retrieve BIBFRAME data (in addition to
the MARC-based database it currently expects). The project illustrated that Metaproxy could
accommodate the BIBFRAME-based data model. A follow-on contract then enhanced the product to a
more detailed level to enable LC to determine issues and enhancements needed for the SRU standard
search protocol and its query language Contextual Query Language (CQL). These standards are
maintained by the Library of Congress and used extensively by LC and the library community for
information retrieval.
AV in BIBFRAME. The Library also commissioned a study as a follow-on to the study on modeling
audiovisual material in BIBFRAME that was published in 2014
(http://www.loc.gov/bibframe/pdf/bibframe-avmodelingstudy-may15-2014.pdf). The new study
investigates the levels of technical metadata needed in the bibliographic description in order to use the
item, versus linking to more detailed technical details needed for preservation of an item. It is
completed and near publication.
Training for BIBFRAME Pilot. In September 2015, training was provided for the approximately 40
catalogers involved in the LC BIBFRAME Pilot. This training, developed by the Cooperative and
Instructional Programs Division (COIN) in close collaboration with the Network Development and MARC
Standards Office, involved a brief “refresher” on the concepts of Linked Data and the Semantic Web,
and hands-on practice using the LC-developed BIBFRAME Editor. COIN is also developing follow-up and
refresher training to reinforce the September training and to keep pilot participants continuously
informed on development changes in the use of the Editor and in the workflow for the Pilot.
Cataloger’s Desktop. Last year’s work on Cataloger’s Desktop resystemization has been receiving some
fine tuning. Desktop has been moved to the cloud, with both system reliability and response times
dramatically improved. The most significant visible change over the past six months has been to make it
possible for Desktop users to search and access Classification Web from within Cataloger’s Desktop.
There have also been several enhancements to Desktop’s security, with a major upgrade to password
security due for release with the upcoming 2016 Issue 1 in February.
In the coming months LC staff will be surveying Desktop subscribers to identify needs for future
development and support. Suggestions for survey questions, new content, or improved features should
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be sent to Bruce Johnson at LC at bjoh@loc.gov. Subscribe to the free Cataloger’s Desktop discussion list
at www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/ugroup.html.
Merger of Cataloging in Publication and Dewey Sections. A proposal to merge the Cataloging in
Publication and Dewey sections within the Library of Congress was approved by Library management on
December 15, 2015. Currently, there is considerable convergence between the work done within the CIP
Section and Dewey Section. Most of the Dewey Decimal Classification assignments are for titles received
through the CIP Program, principally at the pre-publication stage. Merging the two sections will allow
even greater synergies between the two programs to develop. The missions of both programs will
continue to thrive, and the combined section will be able more easily to support key goals of the Library
of Congress Strategic Plan by allowing staff to be cross-trained and support both program areas instead
of focusing on only one. The new section will be named the CIP and Dewey Section. Caroline Saccucci
will serve as section head of the new section and program manager for both the CIP and Dewey
Programs. The CIP and Dewey Section will reside in the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division
within the Acquisition and Bibliographic Access Directorate.
DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGING
RDA Development. PSD developed 3 RDA change proposals for discussion at the November 2015
meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) in Edinburgh, Scotland. PSD also
produced responses to the other 36 proposals and discussion papers that came from other
constituencies, task groups, and other communities. The changes to the RDA instructions as a result of
the meeting will be published in the April 2016 Update to RDA Toolkit. LC was represented at the
meeting by Dave Reser (LC Representative), and Kate James (RDA Examples Editor); Regina Reynolds (US
ISSN Center) attended the meeting as an observer. As a result of the changing RDA governance strategy,
the JSC was renamed, becoming the RDA Steering Committee at the end of the meeting. The full
transition to the new governance model will not be completed until about 2019. A brief summary of the
outcomes related to the meeting is available at http://rda-rsc.org/RSCmeetingoutcomes. LC also
contributes to the development of RDA via the Fast Track process (Fast Track changes were published in
the August and October releases of the RDA Toolkit).
Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements. The RDA Toolkit releases in
August and October of 2015 represented 74 statements updated, new, or deleted. Many of the updates
were related to reconciling policy statements with the recommendations from the PCC Series Policy Task
Group. The next set of updates to the LC-PCC PSs will occur in February of 2016.
PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group. Staff at LC and the NACO Nodes continue to work with Gary
Strawn (Northwestern University) and the PCC Phase 3 RDA Authorities Task Group to prepare for the
final phase of recoding all eligible name authority records in the LC/NACO Authority File with the
appropriate RDA indicia. Although it was hoped that Phase 3B would take place during 2015, the date of
the production change has not yet been set pending a successful test of the process. The two major
tasks to be achieved in Phase 3B include: re-coding AACR2 authority records as RDA when 1XX fields
contain no RDA-contrary elements, and enhancing records with other data elements including the
addition of 024 fields for ISNIs (the International Standard Numerical Identifier) to names in the LC/NAF
that match the OCLC-Leiden supplied list of ISNIs (these additions may occur on records already coded
as RDA). Announcements on the timing of the changes will be made after testing has been completed.
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RDA Training. The Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN) of the Library of Congress
continues to add performance support and other training material to the “RDA Refreshers” web page of
the Catalogers Learning Workshop (CPLW) at
http://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/RDA%20training%20materials/rda-refreshers.html. New materials are
added occasionally, and we welcome suggestions for topics on which catalogers feel they would like
more guidance.
ALA-LC Romanization Tables. The pace of ALA-LC Romanization Table development has slowed over the
past six months. During the period, one proposed new table is currently in development. Staff in PSD
and elsewhere in the Library of Congress worked closely with ALA’s Committee on Cataloging: African
and Asian Materials (CC:AAM) and Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) to develop
and review these tables.
Highlights of 2015 include:
 A proposed new Deseret table was received from Kjerste Christensen of Brigham Young University.
The proposal has completed LC-internal review and is currently undergoing constituent review until
January 21, 2016.
 LC responded to a preliminary report from a CEAL Working Group that is discussing the need for
further revision to the Japanese romanization table. The Working Group’s term has since expired
and it is unclear when a successor group will take up this effort.
 A revision of the Mongolian table is being developed by Wayne Richter. This proposal was initially
submitted in 1998 and needs considerable additional editorial work. No completion target date has
been set.
All current ALA-LC romanization tables are available at www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html, as
well as in Cataloger’s Desktop. Any questions about romanization table development should be directed
to Bruce Johnson (Policy & Standards Division) at bjoh@loc.gov.
SUBJECT CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION
Subject Headings Manual. Fifteen Subject Headings Manual (SHM) instruction sheets have been
updated since the Annual Conference in 2015, and two of them underwent substantial revision to codify
long-standing – but undocumented – practices regarding the amount and type of research necessary for
subject heading proposals, and the procedures for citing for that research.
H 202, Authority Research for Subject Heading Proposals, was rearranged to emphasize research
instead of the identification of patterns. The instructions on consulting reference sources were also
lightly revised to clarify terminology and incorporate twenty-first century sources; and a new section
including 17 examples of full authority records from various disciplines, accompanied by explanatory
notes, was added.
H 203, Citation of Sources, was renumbered and some sections were rearranged, instructions on
providing information found in the reference sources were revised, and examples were updated
throughout.
The revised instruction sheets are available in Cataloger’s Desktop and also in PDF format from the
SHM free downloads page, http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeSHM/freeshm.html.
Revision to LC Subject Headings Romance literature and Love stories. The subject heading Romance
literature was used for literary works written in the Romance languages. The heading Love stories was
assigned to fiction that deals with romantic love. Since love stories are often called romances in
common parlance, the heading Romance fiction – which refers to fiction written in Romance languages
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– was often misapplied to love stories. Confusing the issue even more, the genre/form term for fiction
that deals with romantic love is Romance fiction.
To promote consistency between LCSH and LCGFT and to resolve the long-standing confusion over
these headings, the LC subject heading Romance literature was revised in May 2015 to Romancelanguage literature and its narrower terms were also revised (e.g., Romance fiction was revised to
Romance-language fiction; Bawdy poetry, Romance to Bawdy poetry, Romance-language).
The heading Love stories and headings in the form Love stories, [language or country] (e.g., Love
stories, Hebrew; Love stories, Argentine) were revised to Romance fiction and Romance fiction,
[language or country], respectively. Those revisions were approved in October 2015.
Geographic Features in Taiwan. In October 2015, 28 LC subject headings representing geographic
features in Taiwan were revised from Wade-Giles to pinyin romanization. A “former heading” reference
from the Wade-Giles form is provided in each authority record.
Notable New and Revised Headings. Several subject headings of note have been approved since the
Annual Conference. They include At sign; Charlie Hebdo Attack, Paris, France, 2015; Mass shootings;
Right to be forgotten; Salad bars; Smartwatches; and Spritzes (Cocktails). There was one revision of
note, in addition to those reported above: the heading for Mount McKinley in Alaska was revised to
Denali, Mount (Alaska), in October 2015, reflecting President Obama’s August decision to change the
name. The new heading also includes UF references for 45 variant names that have been identified by
the Board on Geographic Names.
GENRE/FORM TERMS
Genre/Form Terms Manual. In early January 2016, PSD published a draft Genre/Form Terms Manual
that provides guidelines and instructions for making proposals and applying genre/form terms in
bibliographic records and in authority records for works. The manual replaces the informal and
occasionally ad-hoc guidelines that had been in place since the project to develop LCGFT began in 2007.
The draft instruction sheets may be found in PDF form at
http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCGFT/freelcgft.html and will appear in Cataloger’s Desktop
in late 2016. Comments on the drafts may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov through May
31, 2016.
Definition of Genre/Form. PSD has revised LCGFT’s definition of genre/form in response to a
recommendation from the ALA/ALCTS/CaMMS Subject Analysis Committee’s Working Group on the
Definition and Scope of Genre/Form for LCGFT. Among other changes, the revision does not make a
distinction between genre and form, but instead treats them as a single unified concept. PSD believes
that the new definition balances the desire of the library community to include a broad range of terms
in the vocabulary with the need to provide clear guidance to those using and maintaining it. The revised
definition is included in the draft Genre/Form Terms Manual and will appear in the introduction to the
new edition of LCGFT, which will be published in early 2016.
Scope Notes. In November 2015, PSD determined that the style of scope notes in LCGFT should be
simplified. Instead of beginning with “This heading is used as a genre/form heading for…,” scope notes
no longer have an introductory phrase. The project to revise the existing scope notes was completed in
December 2015.
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Geographic Subdivision. To promote consistency in LCGFT, PSD has undertaken a project to revise all
genre/form terms currently marked (Not Subd Geog) to No decision. This action will have no practical
effect on assignment of terms, since neither terms marked (Not Subd Geog) nor those marked No
decision may be geographically subdivided. The project affects approximately 370 of the over 1,800
terms in LCGFT and will be completed in early 2016.
Literature Project. The literature genre/form project is a collaboration undertaken by PSD and the
ALA/ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee’s Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation, which formed
the Working Group on LCGFT Literature Terms.
In September 2015, PSD approved 150 literature genre/form terms that were proposed by the
Working Group, thus completing the literature genre/form project. The first group of approximately 230
proposals had been approved in May 2015, but review of the remaining proposals was postponed due
to staffing and workload levels in PSD.
Religion Project. The religion genre/form project was a collaboration between PSD and the American
Theological Library Association. In September 2015, PSD approved 45 proposals for religion genre/form
terms.
Proposals for New and Revised Genre/Form Terms. PSD is not currently accepting proposals for new
and revised terms in the areas of music, literature, religion, or the “general” terms (e.g., handbooks,
dictionaries), but continues to accept proposals in the areas of moving images, non-musical recorded
sound, cartography, and law.
LC Implementation. The Library of Congress’ Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, which
catalogs most of the textual works acquired for the Library’s general collections, has not yet decided
when it will implement the “general,” religion, and literature genre/form terms.
DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP TERMS
Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) is intended to describe the creators of, and
contributors to, resources, and also the intended audiences of resources. Terms may be assigned in
bibliographic records and in authority records for works.
Pilot Phase 2. Phase 2 of the pilot was completed in December 2015, with the approval of over 400
proposals for new terms and also some revisions to previously approved terms. There are now
approximately 800 terms in the vocabulary. The approved terms are based on guiding principles that
specialists in LC’s Policy and Standards Division (PSD) have developed, and are that available on LC’s
website at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcdgt-principles.pdf.
Demonyms for Local Places. PSD has decided in principle that demonyms for the residents of local
places (e.g., counties, cities, city sections) may be included in LCDGT, but the appropriate level of
disambiguation among demonyms that are, or that may be, used to refer to people from unrelated
places must be determined. The form of qualifier must also be decided. In November 2015 PSD
published a paper entitled “Demonyms for Local Places in LC Demographic Group Terms: Analysis of the
Issues” (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcdgt-demonyms.pdf), in which several options for
disambiguation are discussed. Feedback and suggestions on the issues presented in the paper may be
directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov by January 30, 2016.
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Demographic Group Terms Manual. In January 2016, PSD published the draft Demographic Group
Terms Manual, which is based chiefly on the guiding principles for LCDGT (see above). The manual
provides guidelines and instructions for making proposals and applying demographic group terms in
bibliographic records and in authority records for works. The draft instruction sheets may be accessed
in PDF form at http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCDGT/freelcdgt.html and will appear in
Cataloger’s Desktop in late 2016. Comments on the drafts may be directed to Janis L. Young at
jayo@loc.gov through May 31, 2016.
Pilot Phase 3. Policy specialists in PSD created all of the proposals that were approved in phases 1 and 2
of LCDGT development. The proposals that they included were chiefly intended test theories on
policies, and the approved terms highlight specific areas of concern (e.g., conflict situations;
hierarchies), provide useful examples, and serve as the basis for future development. PSD believes that
the vocabulary is now robust enough to support limited use, and that it is time to test the policies in a
production environment. PSD will therefore accept proposals for terms that are needed in new
cataloging only. Due to PSD staffing and workload considerations, proposals that appear to be made as
part of retrospective projects, or projects to establish terms that are not needed for current cataloging,
will not be considered.
All proposals should follow the guidelines on form of authorized term, references, scope notes,
research, etc., presented in the draft Demographic Group Terms Manual.
SACO members should use the Proposal System when making proposals and send an email to
saco@loc.gov to inform Coop staff that the proposals are ready, according to the normal procedure.
To encourage broad implementation of LCDGT, PSD has also created a survey to enable catalogers
who do not work at LC or in a SACO institution to contribute proposals, and it is available at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LCDGTproposals. The survey requests the same information that the
Proposal System does, but in a simplified format. PSD staff will make the formal proposals, which will be
vetted during the standard editorial process. The survey will be available for the duration of Phase 3 of
the pilot, which is scheduled to end on May 31, 2016.
LC Implementation. The Library of Congress’ Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, which
catalogs most of the textual works acquired for the Library’s general collections, has not yet decided
when it will implement the demographic group terms.
ALA Presentation on LCDGT. Janis L. Young, a senior cataloging policy specialist in PSD, will be making a
presentation entitled By Who and For Whom? LC Demographic Group Terms at the ALA Annual
Conference. She will discuss the purpose and structure of LCDGT, its current status, and plans for further
development. She will also relate some anecdotes about interesting problems that have arisen while
developing the vocabulary, and briefly present the general principles for assignment of the terms. The
presentation will occur during the first hour of the Subject Analysis Committee’s meeting on Monday,
January 11, from 1-2 p.m. in the Seaport Hotel, Seaport Ballroom A&B and is open to all ALA attendees.
Questions and comments about LCDGT may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov.
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