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The MHLS cataloging department has recently completed authority control backfile processing with MARCIVE, Inc. Any shared system-wide resources in our catalog have had their author names, subject headings, genre headings, uniform titles, and series titles verified or updated to match the current Library of Congress headings. As new records continue to be added and authorized terms change over time, MHLS will maintain these headings through ongoing services with this vendor.
As part of our continuous efforts towards equity, diversity, and inclusion, this project also offered us the opportunity to add some alternative subject headings to records where the current authorized terms may seem outdated, insensitive, or confusing to our users. Any valid Library of Congress headings will still be included and searchable on any of these records as always. The additional terms will provide further search keywords and will help more people to find these materials with terms they are familiar with or more comfortable using.
Our catalog now offers more inclusive terminology for describing groups of people using the words that these people often use to describe themselves. Terms from the Chicano Thesaurus are now included on materials about people from various Latin American countries. For example, "Boricuas" has been added to all materials that had a subject heading of “Puerto Ricans” and "Chicanos" has been added to all materials with a subject heading of "Mexican Americans". Also added are the preferred names used by groups of indigenous people as an alternative to the names given to them by colonizers. For example, adding “Niimíipuu” on records with a subject heading of “Nez Percé Indians”.
Here is a partial list of some of the other alternative terms:
- "Undocumented Immigrants" on instances of "Illegal immigration"
- "Hard of hearing" on instances of "Hearing impaired"
- "Inuit peoples" on instances of "Eskimos"
- "Indigenous peoples" on instances of "Indians"
- "Low-wage work" on instances of "Unskilled labor"
- "Children in difficult situations" on instances of “Problem children"
This list will continue to grow as we expect to add new terms regularly. If you have more suggestions of alternative terms we might add to our catalog, please send a message to cataloging@midhudson.org for consideration.
An additional benefit of this project was the inclusion of Accelerated Reader and Lexile Measures on many records. These can now be used by library staff and catalog users to identify lists of books that match certain criteria. The catalog help page http://resources.mhls.info/ has been updated to include links for searching the catalog by a range of Lexile scores, as well as searching by Interest Level for Accelerated Reader. Library staff can also make use of this data with Sierra’s Create Lists function to get even more specific results. For more information on using create lists with Lexile and Accelerated Reader, please refer to this Knowledge Base page.
Finally, an unexpected bonus to come out of this project was the opportunity to review our "near match" report. This is a list of headings, mostly from old or incomplete records, that didn't contain enough information for the authority control vendor to fully process. The cataloging team has been able to take a closer look at these records over the past several weeks. It's given us the chance to further consider some of the terms used in our catalog and make improvements to old records that otherwise may not have gotten another look. Thank you to the MHLS cataloging specialists for helping prepare and carry out this multifaceted project that has been many years in the making.
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