User tasks, Step one

Brian C. Vickery, one of the greats of classification theory and a key person in the work of the Classification Research Group (active from 1952 to 1968), gave this list of the stages of "the process of acquiring documentary information" in his 1959 book Classification and Indexing in Science[1]:

1. Identifying the subject of the search. 
2. Locating this subject in a guide which refers the searcher to one or more documents. 
3. Locating the documents. 
4. Locating the required information in the documents. 

These overlap somewhat with FRBR's user tasks (find, identify, select, obtain) but the first step in Vickery's group is my focus here: Identifying the subject of the search. It is a step that I do not perceive as implied in the FRBR "find", and is all too often missing from library/use interactions today.

A person walks into a library... 

Presumably, libraries are an organized knowledge space. If they weren't the books would just be thrown onto the nearest shelf, and subject cataloging would not exist. However, if this organization isn't both visible and comprehended by users, we are, firstly, not getting the return on our cataloging investment and secondly, users are not getting the full benefit of the library.

In Part V of my series on Catalogs and Context, I had two salient quotes. One by Bill Katz: "Be skeptical of the of information the patron presents"[2]; the other by Pauline Cochrane: "Why should a user ever enter a search term that does not provide a link to the syndetic apparatus and a suggestion about how to proceed?"[3]. Both of these address the obvious, yet often overlooked, primary point of failure for library users, which is the disconnect between how the user expresses his information need vis-a-vis the terms assigned by the library to the items that may satisfy that need.

Vickery's Three Issues for Stage 1 

Issue 1: Formulating the topic 

Vickery talks about three issues that must be addressed in his first stage, identifying the subject on which to search in a library catalog or indexing database. The first one is "...the inability even of specialist enquirers always to state their requirements exactly..." [1 p.1] That's the "reference interview" problem that Katz writes about: the user comes to the library with an ill-formed expression of what they need. We generally consider this to be outside the boundaries of the catalog, which means that it only exists for users who have an interaction with reference staff. Given that most users of the library today are not in the physical library, and that online services (from Google to Amazon to automated courseware) have trained users that successful finding does not require human interaction, these encounters with reference staff are a minority of the user-library sessions.

In online catalogs, we take what the user types into the search box as an appropriate entry point for a search, even though another branch of our profession is based on the premise that users do not enter the library with a perfectly formulated question, and need an intelligent intervention to have a successful interaction with the library. Formulating a precise question may not be easy, even for experienced researchers. For example, in a search about serving persons who have been infected with HIV, you may need to decide whether the research requires you to consider whether the person who is HIV positive has moved along the spectrum to be medically diagnosed as having AIDS. This decision is directly related to the search that will need to be done:

HIV-positive persons--Counseling of
AIDS (Disease)--Patients--Counseling of

Issue 2: from topic to query 

The second of Vickery's caveats is that "[The researcher] may have chosen the correct concepts to express the subject, but may not have used the standard words of the index."[1 p.4] This is the "entry vocabulary" issue. What user would guess that the question "Where all did Dickens live?" would be answered with a search using "Dickens, Charles -- Homes and haunts"? And that all of the terms listed as "use for" below would translate to the term "HIV (Viruses)" in the catalog? (h/t Netanel Ganin):

As Pauline Cochrane points out[4], beginning in the latter part of the 20th century, libraries found themselves unable to include the necessary cross-reference information in their card catalogs, due to the cost of producing the cards. Instead, they asked users to look up terms in the subject heading reference books used by catalog librarians to create the headings. These books are not available to users of online catalogs, and although some current online catalogs include authorized alternate entry points in their searches, many do not.* This means that we have multiple generations of users who have not encountered "term switching" in their library catalog usage, and who probably do not understand its utility.

Even with such a terminology-switching mechanism, finding the proper entry in the catalog is not at all simple. The article by Thomas Mann (of Library of Congress, not the German author) on “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” [5] shows not only how complex that process might be, but it also indicates that the translation can only be accomplished by a library-trained expert. This presents us with a great difficulty because there are not enough such experts available to guide users, and not all users are willing to avail themselves of those services. How would a user discover that literature is French, but performing arts are in France?:

French literature
Performing arts -- France -- History

Or, using the example in Mann's piece, the searcher looking for in information on tribute payments in the Peloponnesian war needed to look under "Finance, public–Greece–Athens".  This type of search failure fuels the argument that full text search is a better solution, and a search of Google Books on "tribute payments Peloponnesian war" does yield some results. The other side of the argument is that full text searches fail to retrieve documents not in the search language, while library subject headings apply to all materials in all languages. Somehow, this latter argument, in my experience, doesn't convince.

Issue 3: term order 

The third point by Vickery is one that keyword indexing has solved, which is "...the searcher may use the correct words to express the subject, but may not choose the correct combination order."[1 p.4] In 1959, when Vickery was writing this particular piece, having the wrong order of terms resulted in a failed search. Mann, however, would say that with keyword searching the user does not encounter the context that the pre-coordinated headings provide; thus keyword searching is not a solution at all. I'm with him part way, because I think keyword searching as an entry to a vocabulary can be useful if the syndetic structure is visible with such a beginning. Keyword searching directly against bibliographic records, less so.

Comparison to FRBR "find" 

FRBR's "find" is described as "to find entities that correspond to the user’s stated search criteria". [6 p. 79] We could presume that in FRBR the "user's stated search criteria" has either been modified through a prior process (although I hardly know what that would be, other than a reference interview), or that the library system has the capability to interact with the user in such a way that the user's search is optimized to meet the terminology of the library's knowledge organization system. This latter would require some kind of artificial intelligence and seems unlikely. The former simply does not happen often today, with most users being at a computer rather than a reference desk. FRBR's find seems to carry the same assumption as has been made functional in online catalogs, which is that the appropriateness of the search string is not questioned.

Summary 

There are two take-aways from this set of observations:

1. We are failing to help users refine their query, which means that they may actually be basing their searches on concepts that will not fulfill their information need in the library catalog. 
2. We are failing to help users translate their query into the language of the catalog(s). 

I would add that the language of the catalog should show users how the catalog is organized and how the knowledge universe is addressed by the library. This is implied in the second take-away, but I wanted to bring it out specifically, because it is a failure that particularly bothers me.

Notes

*I did a search in various catalogs on "cancer" and "carcinoma". Cancer is the form used in LCSH-cataloged bibliographic records, and carcinoma is a cross reference. I found a local public library whose Bibliocommons catalog did retrieve all of the records with "cancer" in them when the search was on "carcinoma"; and that the same search in the Harvard Hollis system did not (carcinoma: 1889 retrievals; cancer 21,311). These are just two catalogs, and not a representative sample, to say the least, but the fact seems to be shown.

References

[1] Vickery, B C. Classification and Indexing in Science. New York: Academic Press, 1959.
[2] Katz, Bill. Introduction to Reference Work: Reference Services and Reference Processes. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. p. 82 http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/928951754. Cited in: Brown, Stephanie Willen. The Reference Interview: Theories and Practice. Library Philosophy and Practice 2008. ISSN 1522-0222
[3] Modern Subject Access in the Online Age: Lesson 3 Author(s): Pauline A. Cochrane, Marcia J. Bates, Margaret Beckman, Hans H. Wellisch, Sanford Berman, Toni Petersen, Stephen E. Wiberley and Jr. Source: American Libraries, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Apr., 1984), pp. 250-252, 254-255 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25626708
[4] Modern Subject Access in the Online Age: Lesson 2 Pauline A. Cochrane American Libraries Vol. 15, No. 3 (Mar., 1984), pp. 145-148, 150 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25626647
[5] Thomas Mann, “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” (June 13, 2007). PDF, 41 pp. http://guild2910.org/Pelopponesian%20War%20June%2013%202007.pdf
[6] IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, 2009. http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr_2008.pdf.

Relativ index

Most of us, when we hear "Dewey Decimal Classification" (DDC) think about the numbers that go onto the backs of books that then tell us where the book can be found on the library's shelves. The subject classification and its decimal notation was only part of Dewey's invention, however. The other part was the "Relativ Index." The Relativ Index was the entry vocabulary for the classification scheme. It was to be consulted by library users as the way to find topics in the library.

"The Index givs similar or sinonimus words, and the same words in different connections, any any intelijent person wil surely get the ryt number. A reader wishing to know sumthing of the tarif looks under T, and, at a glance, finds 337 as its number. This gyds him to shelvs, to all books and pamflets, to shelf catalog, to clast subject catalog on cards, to clast record of loans, and, in short, in simple numeric order, thruout the whole library to anything bearing on his subject." (Dewey, Edition 11, p. 10) (Yes, that is how he spelled things.)

The most recent version of DDC that I own is from 1922, so this example is an entry in the Relativ Index of Edition 11 under "Leaves:"

Leaves   fertilizers  631.872
              shapes of     botany 581.4

In the schedules these classes are listed as:

631.872 : "Vegetable manures, Leaves" (coming right after "Vegetable manures, Muck").
581.4 : "Morfology   comparativ anatomy"

You can see that the index is not just a repeat of the names of the points in the classification but is a kind of subject thesaurus on its own. It doesn't just point to the classification number but it gives some context ("fertilizers" "botany") to help the user decide which class number to select.

What I find odd today in libraries (mainly public libraries) is that we do not have an entry vocabulary for the Dewey classification. Libraries in the U.S. use the Library of Congress Subject Headings even when their classification scheme is Dewey. While LC subject headings will lead you to a catalog entry that has a classification number, they aren't an index to that classification scheme.

There are more oddities, actually.

One oddity is that we never explain these classification numbers to the users. Yes, I can go from the catalog to the shelf and find books that are near the one I am seeking, but in a small public library I can encounter a number of different topics on a single shelf; and in a large academic library I can wander whole aisles without seeing a change in the initial class number and have no idea if I have exhausted my topic area on the shelf as decimal points three places out change. Yet there is nothing either at the shelf nor anywhere else in the library to tell me what those numbers mean except usually at a very macro level.  What I have before me are book spines and class numbers, and since I don't know what the class numbers mean I have to rely on the spine titles. So if I browse a shelf and see:

364.106 D26f   The first family
364.106 En36h  Havana nocturne
364.106 En36i  The Westies
364.106 En36p  Paddy whacked

... it may not be clear to me what topic I am looking at. At the very least I would like to be able to type "364.106" into an app on my phone and get a display something like:

300  Social sciences
    360  Social problems & social services
        364  Criminology
           364.106....

(That example is truncated because the divisions to the right of the decimal point are not  available to me. Presumably the display would take me down to .106, which would then have something to do with gangs and/or organized crime and/or mafia, but I'm just guessing at that.)

Even better, I'd like to point my phone camera at a book spine and get a similar read-out. Yes, I know that's not going to be simple.

Another oddity is that we put multiple subject headings on a bibliographic record, but only one classification number, reducing the role of classification to simply the ordering of books on the shelves. This means that there are subject headings on the records that would logically lead to class numbers other than the one that has been given.

Using my crime books as an example, the subject headings are clearly more diverse than the single classification code:

    Mafia -- United States -- History
    Mafia -- United States -- Biography
    Criminals -- United States -- Biography
    Organized crime -- United States -- Case studies

    Lansky, Meyer, 1902-
    Luciano, Lucky, 1897-1962
    Mafia -- Cuba -- Havana
    Cuba -- History -- 1933-1959
    Havana (Cuba) -- Social conditions -- 20th century

    Westies (Gang) -- History
    Gangs -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
    Irish American criminals -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
    Hell's Kitchen (New York, N.Y.)

    Organized crime -- United States -- History
    Irish American criminals -- United States -- History
    Gangsters -- United States -- History

This won't be a surprise to my readers, but this dual system is full of "gotchas" for users. If I look up "Irish American criminals" in the subject headings I retrieve some items in 364.106, some in the 920 area (biographies, but many users won't know that), and some in fiction (under the author's last name). It's not that there isn't a rhyme or reason, but there is nothing to explain the differences between these items to the library user that would justify going to three entirely different places in the library to explore this topic. My guess is that the system seems quite arbitrary.

Things are a bit better in libraries that use Library of Congress Classification (LCC) along with LCSH, since the two seem to be developed with some coordination. In his essay "The Peloponneasian War and the Future of Reference" Thomas Mann, of the Library of Congress, explains how LCSH and LCC work together:

"In order to find which areas of the bookstacks to browse, however, researchers need the subject headings in the library catalog to serve as the index to the class scheme. But the linkage between a subject heading and a classification number is usually dependent on the precoordination of multiple facets within the same string. For example, notice the specific linkages of the following precoordinated strings:

Greece–History–Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.: DF229-DF230
Greece–History–19th century: DF803
Greece–History–Acarnanian Revolt, 1836: DF823.6
Greece–History–Civil War, 1944-1949: DF849.5"

This is the correlation that will appear in the LCSH documentation, but this is not what the user sees in the catalog. A search in LC's catalog for Greece-History-19th century brings up books with a variety of classification numbers, the first four being:

DF803 .H45
DF725 .A14
DF951.T45
DK508.95.O33

Again, the user is directed to different shelf locations from what seems to be a single subject heading, with no explanation of what these different locations mean.* It's got to be terribly confusing.

Compact notation is essential for the ordering of books on the shelf. But it seems truly odd that we order the books on the shelf but do not tell users what the order means. This can be seen as providing a delightful serendipity, but I presume that we could provide serendipity with less intellectual effort than has been dedicated to DDC and LCC, which are both enormously detailed and growing more so each year in an attempt to encompass the complexity of the published world. How much richer would the user's library experience be if she understood the relationship between the items on the shelf? Does it make sense to create detailed and complex relationships that then are not understood or used? What would a shelf system look like that was meaningful to library users? in a small library? in a large library? And, finally, can we use computing power to overcome to limitations that brought us to the situation we are in today in terms of organized subject access?

* Before someone explains to me that the first subject heading determines the class number... you know that, I know that, but millions of library users have no idea what the order of the subject headings means. Besides, library catalog users often don't see the full record with all of the subject headings. Even in the LC catalog subject headings are not included in the default display. We can't blame the users if they don't know what we don't help them know.

Social aspects of subject headings

You've probably played the "my favorite subject heading" game when geeking out with librarian friends. Here's some additional fuel in case you've run out of zingers.

The Open Library takes the LC subject headings and breaks them apart at the subfield level into subjects, persons, places, genres, and times. It also includes some BISAC headings retrieved from Amazon, so the subject list is not "pure." The separate subject entries obtained are similar to, but not the same as, OCLC's FAST headings, and look much like some facets that appear in library catalogs.

The Open Library database currently holds about 24 million records for books (at least partially de-duped). In a recent dump of subjects, the total number of different subjects came out as 1,278,539. Of those, 336,638 were of the "topical" variety, that is either a 650 $a or a 65X $x. The top 25 are as follows:

825168 History
322928 Biography
212822 Politics and government
206519 Congresses
192968 History and criticism
184183 Fiction
123838 Law and legislation
119333 Bibliography
95555 Juvenile literature
93364 Description and travel
90866 Economic conditions
84787 Criticism and interpretation
74878 Claims
71468 Social life and customs
70926 Social conditions
70563 Catalogs
69205 Private Bills
69191 Private bills
66480 Education
63410 Exhibitions
63301 World War, 1939-1945
60235 Foreign relations
60068 Philosophy
56219 Dictionaries
55460 Study and teaching

I find it interesting that with the exception of "World War, 1939-1945" these appear to have the function of qualifiers, and I'm thinking that it would be interesting to contrast the $a and $x terms. My guess is that these are $x, but that not all $x are of this nature.

Of the subfields, 164,342 appear only once in the database. These are a great source of interesting an unusual headings, including "Social aspects of adzes" and "Deer as pets." In fact, the "Social aspects...." tail is so amusing that I have made a file of those with a count of 1.

The full file of topical subjects is 8 megabytes, but can probably yield innumerable hours of library cocktail hour amusement. (text in format "count - tab - subject") I will also look into names, organizations, places and times as subjects.

LCSH as linked data: what is an LC Subject Heading?

The Library of Congress Subject Headings have been placed online in SKOS. You can search within the set or download the entire thing in RDF/XML or a n-triples. This is a welcome development.

I must say that I would also welcome some documentation on the decisions that were made, as viewing the actual data has left me with a number of questions. I'm going to begin my comments with a question about scope, and some confusion that is causing me as I think about how I would want to use this data.

What's an LC Subject Heading?

It appears that the LCSH file that is online represents those authority records whose LC control number begin with "sh", as in: sh 00009880. (Numbering 342,684 records.) However, if you do a Subject Authority Headings search in the LC authorities database you will retrieve any authority record that can be used as a subject. This means that you will retrieve personal names, corporate names, and geographic entities that can be used as subjects. (Note, this is probably a large portion of the name authority file.) This is a mixture of records with LCCNs that begin "n" (for name file) and those that begin "sh" (for subject heading file). I'm at a loss to explain/understand what determines whether a heading has an LCCN beginning with "sh" and would love to get an explanation.

The result is that a search in the LCSH file on the word "Italy" brings up 3,516 headings, with the word somewhere in the heading. However, the heading "Italy" alone is not included. You do have:

Italy, Central
Italy, Northern
Italy, Southern

and you have:

Italy, Northern--Civilization
Italy, Northern--Civilization--Germanic influences
etc.

But not "Italy."

A search in the name heading database on LC's online authority file yields a name heading entry for "Italy." That database (whose response is in the form of a browse list) has innumerable pages for corporate names under the initial term "Italy":

Italy.
Italy. Ambasciata (India)
Italy. Confederazione fascista degli industriali.

It also includes "Italy, Southern" with its LC control number "sh 85069035".

The upshot is that the LC Subject heading file at http://id.loc.gov is not the same as a subject heading search in the online authorities database. It also isn't always logical which file headings fall into. The "Italy. Ambasciata (India)" is in the name heading file as a corporate name, but "Palazzo Dell'Ambasciata di Spagna (Rome, Italy)" is in the subject heading file as a corporate name. There undoubtedly is a set of rules that explains all of this, but it seems to me that a separation of the subject file and the name files creates a split between headings that will not be mirrored in actual use.

This may not matter if the files are combined in the end, and the URI makes it look like all authorities will have ids that directly follow "/authorities/" in the URI. However, although they are both coded as corporate names, the "Palazzo... " record gets the "cool URI" http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh2002000509#concept. Note the ending in "concept". I don't know what hash ending will be given to entries from the names file, but I do find it odd that corporate names ccould have two different hash endings, depending on which file they are from. To be frank, especially since the division into different files doesn't seem terribly logical, and that many items in the name file can also be used as concepts, I would prefer that the "#" indicate the type of heading (personal name, corporate name, conference, geographical name, topic) rather than the file that it comes from. That is, that the "#" would reflect the MARC tag - 100, 110, 111, 150, 151.

Future of Bibliographic Control,LC, 11/13

Notes from the meeting on Nov. 13 of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.

These are my notes and should NOT be taken to represent accurately the thoughts of the working group, only my quick recording of what I understood at the meeting. Also, I must add the disclaimer that I have been engaged as a consultant to the group for the writing of the report. I attempt in that work to be as faithful to the outcomes desired of the group as I can. However, I admit that pure objectivity is a chimera, so my own opinions may come through in the text below.

There was an introduction explaining the creation of the working group (which you can read about on the working group's web site: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/). The group presented an interim report to the Library of Congress. The full report will be available by December 1 for public comment. The comment period will end on December 15, and the final report will be presented on January 8, 2008.

The report was commissioned by the Library of Congress, but it many of its recommendations involve the the library community and other players in its environment. There are over 100 individual recommendations in five general areas.

The working group concluded that there are three major "sea changes" that are needed in the library community:

1. We must redefine bibliographic control broadly to include all materials, a widely diverse community of users, and a multiplicity of venues where information is sought.

2. We must redefine the bibliographic universe to include all stakeholders, including the for-profit organizations that are involved in information delivery and digitization

3. The role of the Library of Congress must be redefined as a partner with other libraries and with non-library institutions, working to achieve the goals of the library community.

The five areas of recommendations are:

1. Increase the efficiency of bibliographic production for all libraries through cooperation and sharing of bibliographic records and through the use of data produced in the overall supply chain.

2. Transfer effort into high value activity. In particular, provide greater value for knowledge creation through leveraging access for unique materials held by libraries, materials that are currently hidden and under-used.

3. Position our technology by recognizing that the Web is our technology platform as well as the appropriate platform for our standards. Recognize that our users are not only people but also applications that interact with library data.

4. Position our community for the future by adding evaluative, qualitative and quantitative analyses of resources. Work to realize the potential provided by the FRBR framework.

5. Strengthen the library and information science profession through education and through development of metrics that will inform decision-making now and in the future.

Under each of these areas there are sets of recommendations. The full set of recommendations is fairly detailed, and the group presented high level groupings of recommendations in the first four areas. (Area five was not presented in detail at the meeting.)

In area 1, the recommendations are grouped:

1.1 Eliminate redundancies in the production of bibliographic metadata. This means making use of data that is created elsewhere in the supply chain, and increasing the sharing of bibliographic records and modifications to records. In particular, the group asks for an examination of barriers to sharing.

1.2 Increase the distribution of responsiblity for bibliographic record production. Increase the number of institutions that participate in shared cataloging activities.

1.3 Collaborate on authority record creation. Similar to 1.2, this recommends that the number of participants in authority record creation be increased, but it also asks that we look at the possibility of sharing across sectors and internationally, to reduce the number of times that an authoritative heading must be created.

Area 2 is called "Enhance Access to Rare and Unique Materials." In this area the group states that any efficiencies gained in other areas should allow the redirection of energy to providing access to unique materials that are held by libraries and other cultural heritage institutions. In particular, the group recommends:

2.2 Integrate access to rare & unique materials with other library materials

2.3. Share bibiographic data relating to these materials. The sharing of bibliographic data must not be limited to those areas where copy cataloging is desired.

2.4 Encourage digitization to allow broad access

Area 3 is about technology and the Web:

3.1.1 Integrate library standards into the Web environment

3.1.2 Extend the use of standard identifiers for bibliographic entities, and include those identifiers in bibliographic records.

3.1.3 Develop a more flexible, extensible metadata carrier that can be readily exchanged with non-library applications.

Area 3 also addresses standards:

3.2.1 Develop standards with a focus on return on investment. Do analysis before beginning the standards process.

3.2.2 Incorporate usage data and lessons from use tests in the standards development process

Area 4 is about positioning the library community toward a more progressive future. In this area there are three main recommendation areas:

4.1 Design for today's and tomorrow's user. This means that we must design into our catalogs and other tools the ability to present evaluative information, and to allow and encourage users to interact with bibliographic data. We must also make use of statistical and other computationally-derived information in our user services.

4.2 Realize FRBR. The framework known as FRBR has great potential but so far is untested. It is being used as the basis for RDA, even though FRBR itself is not clearly understood. The working group recommends that no further work be done on RDA until there has been more investigation of FRBR and the basis it provides for bibliographic metadata. [Note: this recommendation is likely to change such that there will be specific recommendations relating to RDA; FRBR will be treated separately.]

4.3 Optimize LCSH for Use and Re-use. Encourage an analysis of LCSH that would move the system toward a more facetted subject system. Work to create more links between LCSH and other subject heading systems in use. Recognize that with the digitization of works the act of subject assignment may benefit from computational analysis.

In the time that I was at the meeting (I had to leave before the question period ended) there were two questions/comments. The first had to do with the fact that while there are costs to today's methods of bibliographic control, that changes in bibliographic control will have costs as well. (Here it would be good to listen again to the talk given by Rick Lugg at the meeting held at LoC. He spoke of the costs of NOT changing, something that is hard to measure but is very real.) The other comment (from Barbara Tillett) mentioned many of the recommendations and stated that LoC is already engaged in, or has rejected, analogous activities. It was acknowledged, however, that LoC had not made these activities public, so the community is generally unaware of the progress made. To me this points out one of the areas that we all need to work on, which is sharing information about our projects and their progress so that the community as a whole can benefit from work done by a single institution.

Our subject mess

Lately I've had occasion to work with a few different groups of people who are delving into library bibliographic data for the first time. Believe me, it is quite revealing to view it from the viewpoint of these novices. Novices only in this one area, because they generally are quite savvy about computing and data. Each new revelation gives me a chance to regale them with an amusing story about "how it got that way." I can explain (note: explain, not justify) why we have no identifiers for key elements like authors and works. I can pretty much explain why we seem more concerned about the package than the content. I can reminisce about moments in the history of library systems development that happened before some members of these groups were born. But I get totally stuck when they point out the mess that is our subject access.

We have two classification systems, Dewey (DDC) and Library of Congress. (LCC) That in itself is not a problem, and it's fairly easy to explain how they developed in different contexts, always making sure to explain that these systems classify the items in a library, not the world of thought.

What is hard is to try to explain what either of them has to do with the Library of Congress Subject Headings.(LCSH) Many folks assume that LCSH is the entry vocabulary into LCC. Thus if there is a classification code in a record that stands for "vocal music, choruses" that there will be a heading in the record that is "vocal music, choruses," and vice versa. They also assume that the two subject systems (classification and subject headings) have the same structure, which would mean that you can "drill down" from music to vocal music then to choruses in either or both. Nothing could be further from the truth. So it is quite confusing to them when they see a record with a call number that would ostensibly be about "vocal music, choruses" based on the classification, but instead the subject heading is "Cantatas, Secular -- Scores." And they are equally confused when the record has another subject heading ("Funeral music") but only the one classification number.

I can't explain this disconnect between the subject headings and the classification scheme, except to say: that's how it is.

Recently, I was browsing through my beloved copy of the DDC from 1899 that still has both its numeric and alphabetical tabs relating respectively to the classification and the "Relativ Subject Index." The RSI is indeed an index to the classification scheme, and it appears that Dewey originally intended it also as the access to the collection:

"HOW TO USE THIS INDEX
Find the subject desired in its alphabetical place in the index. The number after it is its class number and refers to the place where the topic will be found, in numerical order of class numbers, on the shelves or in the subject catalog."

From this I can only presume that the shelves and the subject catalog were in classification order, and the alphabetical index was the index to that classification. I can only guess at this point, from what he says here, that the subject catalog was in classification order, as is the shelf, but also contained the verbal translation of what the decimal classification numbers meant.

"Under this class number will be found the resources of the library on the subject desired. Other subjects near the one sought may often be consulted with profit; e.g., Communism is the topic wanted and the index refers to 335.4, but 335, Socialism, and even the inclusive division 330, Political economy, also contain much on this subject. The reverse is equally true; the full material on socialism can only be had by looking at its divisions 335.3, Fourierism, 335.4, Communism, etc. The topics which are thus subdivided are plainly marked in the index by heavy faced type."

My copy is #3933, originally owned by the Roger Williams Park Museum in Providence, Rhode Island. The current incarnation of the institution appears to be the Museum of Natural History and Planetarium. My copy has many penciled notes in the area of Zoology (DDC 590), which would fit the natural history nature of the institution. (I don't see any evidence of a current library.) By 1900 the "dictionary catalog" would have taken root, so I don't know if the library would have followed Dewey's instructions for the creation of a classified catalog. But I do wonder how we got from a single system that had an alphabetical index to a classification system to a system with an alphabetical index and two classification systems, but in which the index and the classification have essentially each gone their own ways. This is obviously a gap in my education, which I will gladly rectify if you have suggestions for readings.

Meanwhile, no wonder users are confused.