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Cruising the Library examines the ways in which library classifications have organized sexuality and sexual perversion. The author studies the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Classification, as well as the Library of Congress's Delta Collection, a restricted collection of obscenity until 1964.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a quantitative analysis of the LCGFT vocabulary within a large set of MARC bibliographic data retrieved from the OCLC WorldCat database. The study aimed to provide a detailed analysis of the outcomes of the LCGFT project, which was launched by the Library of Congress (LC) in 2007. Findings point to a moderate increase in LCGFT use over time; however, the vocabulary has not been applied to the fullest extent possible in WorldCat. Further, adoption has been inconsistent between the various LCGFT disciplines. These and other findings discussed here suggest that retrospective application of the vocabulary using automated means should be investigated by catalogers and other technical services librarians. Indeed, as the data used for the analysis show somewhat uneven application of LCGFT, and with nearly half a billion records in WorldCat, it remains a certainty that much of LCGFT’s full potentials for genre/form access and retrieval will remain untapped until innovative solutions are introduced to further increase overall vocabulary usage in bibliographic databases.

Catalogers using Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials: Books (DCRM(B)) were challenged when the Library of Congress (LC) adopted Resource Description and Access (RDA). DCRM(B) is based on AACR2, which is organized according to International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) areas. RDA is based on FRBR. As of this writing, the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee intends to finish an initial version of RBMS Policy Statements for the RDA Toolkit. During the interim, the Bibliographic Standards Committee website states: “The Bibliographic Standards Committee is neutral regarding RDA, neither encouraging nor discouraging agencies regarding implementation of RDA-acceptable DCRM records.” The Committee provides rare book catalogers with two options. The first instructs catalogers to form descriptive portions of records according to DCRM(B) and AACR2, using RDA for access points. The second option directs catalogers to create RDA records using the PCC-RDA BIBCO Standard Record (BSR) that includes rare materials provisions. This paper discusses the creation process of three catalog records for the same rare book developed according to DCRM(B), the PCC-RDA-BSR with rare materials provisions and RDA with exceptions for early printed resources.

The knowledge organization system prepared by the Library of Congress (LC) and widely used in academic libraries has some disadvantages for researchers in the fields of African American studies and LGBTQIA studies. The interdisciplinary nature of those fields means that browsing in stacks or shelflists organized by LC Classification requires looking in numerous locations. As well, persistent bias in the language used for subject headings, as well as the hierarchy of classification for books in these fields, continues to “other” the peoples and topics that populate these titles. This paper offers tools to help researchers have a holistic view of applicable titles across library shelves and hopes to become part of a larger conversation regarding social responsibility and diversity in the library community.1

Taxonomy alignment is essential for integrating knowledge across diverse domains and languages, facilitating information retrieval and data integration. Traditional methods heavily reliant on domain experts are time-consuming and resource-intensive. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an automated taxonomy alignment approach leveraging large language models (LLMs). We introduce a method that embeds taxonomy nodes into a continuous low-dimensional vector space, utilizing hierarchical relationships within category concepts to enhance alignment accuracy. Our approach capitalizes on the contextual understanding and semantic information capabilities of LLMs, offering a promising solution to the challenges of taxonomy alignment. We conducted experiments on two pairs of real-world taxonomies and demonstrated that our method is comparable in accuracy to manual alignment, while significantly reducing time, operational, and maintenance costs associated with taxonomy alignment. Our case study showcases the effectiveness of our approach by visualizing the taxonomy alignment results. This automated alignment framework addresses the increasing demand for accurate and efficient alignment processes across diverse knowledge domains.

Kyrios offers a quick overview of how the Dewey Decimal System (DDC) deals with geographic areas generally and some specific applications of that to the Eastern European region. For those who are a DDC expert, this may be more review, but he hopes there's going to be something here for everyone. There are ten main classes of knowledge represented by the first digit, zero through nine. The 900s, the last of those, are history and geography. Most of the numbers in this main class are about the history of specific areas. So, following the DDC's hierarchical structure, you can go from the top level, history in general at 900, to 940 for European history, to 947 for Eastern European history, and further on for specific countries. Besides those dedicated numbers for history of places, there are practically an infinite number of ways to build valid DDC numbers as a classifier to fit whatever work is being cataloged.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a model for automated classification of old digitised texts to the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), using machine-learning methods.Design/methodology/approachThe general research approach is inherent to design science research, in which the problem of UDC assignment of the old, digitised texts is addressed by developing a machine-learning classification model. A corpus of 70,000 scholarly texts, fully bibliographically processed by librarians, was used to train and test the model, which was used for classification of old texts on a corpus of 200,000 items. Human experts evaluated the performance of the model.FindingsResults suggest that machine-learning models can correctly assign the UDC at some level for almost any scholarly text. Furthermore, the model can be recommended for the UDC assignment of older texts. Ten librarians corroborated this on 150 randomly selected texts.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitations of this study were unavailability of labelled older texts and the limited availability of librarians.Practical implicationsThe classification model can provide a recommendation to the librarians during their classification work; furthermore, it can be implemented as an add-on to full-text search in the library databases.Social implicationsThe proposed methodology supports librarians by recommending UDC classifiers, thus saving time in their daily work. By automatically classifying older texts, digital libraries can provide a better user experience by enabling structured searches. These contribute to making knowledge more widely available and useable.Originality/valueThese findings contribute to the field of automated classification of bibliographical information with the usage of full texts, especially in cases in which the texts are old, unstructured and in which archaic language and vocabulary are used.

Berthoud is pleased to be speaking about the reclassification project work happening for the Library of Congress Classification DK Schedule, which is the history schedule currently named \"History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics.\" These revision projects are collaborations between the Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division, which is her unit, and the Germanic and Slavic Cataloging Division. Before she made a career pivot into librarianship, she earned a BA in Russian Language and Literature and an MA in Soviet History, so it has been a real thrill and a privilege for her to be involved in this work. The work to change the DK Schedule long predates her, even his time on this planet, but his involvement started with an email from Oksana Mykytyn, Director of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) Library. Oksana wrote to his division in early 2023 with some very pointed and very valid critiques of their existing standards, writing, in part, \"The code in the 'history' section--Ukraine Conflict, 2014- --is also a cause of concern.

There is little literature on documenting the correct application of classification systems. This paper seeks to remedy this gap by describing how Northeastern Illinois University created documentation for their implementation of system that describes Illinois State publications. We recommend creating documentation that is flexible, accessible, and user-oriented. Flexible documentation not only facilitates changes to the documentation, it also allows librarians to take advantage of other uses of this documentation. In our case, the process of documentation produced a near complete listing of Illinois publications and provided the basis for a structural history of Illinois government. Documentation of classification systems not only improves library work, but also assists in preserving artifacts of library history.

This article discusses current initiatives related to the Indigenous studies collections at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the relevant history of those collections. Current initiatives include work on a planning grant with three Indigenous community partners: the urban Native and Indigenous community in Chicago, Forest County Potawatomi in Wisconsin, and the Pueblo of Santa Ana in New Mexico. These collaborations are intended to help improve access to the collections for Indigenous communities in ways that prioritize their needs. Other initiatives include a revised collection development policy, a policy for access to culturally sensitive Indigenous materials, and improvements and changes to cataloging and archival processing practices and standards.