LC labeling: an indictment

Joan Marshall

Some of what I am going to say appeared as a footnote in a book published in November, 1971 by Scarecrow Press. I believe this book will create quite a stir in the library world and especially in the Library of Congress. The book, Prejudices and Antipathies: a Tract on LC Subject Headings Relating to People, by Sanford Berman, is a thoroughly documented indictment of the list-makers' insensitivity toward minority groups. I believe this insensitivity is a result of the philosophy that underlies the Library of Congress's subject heading practice.

The guiding principles for establishing subject headings in the LC list are set forth in Haykin's Subject Headings: a Practical Guide (Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, 1951.) As stated by Haykin, the first of the fundamental concepts for establishing a heading is "that the reader is the focus in all cataloging principles and practice." Therefore, the terminology of an effective and easy-to-approach catalog must be determined by the majority of the readers' probable psychological approach to the subject. References serve the needs of minorities.

This cataloging axiom has two serious faults. First is the assumption that libraries, keeping "in mind the kind of reader the library serves, his social background and intellectual level," tailor-make subject headings to suit their patrons. This assumption is unfounded. In actuality, libraries use lists. The use of maintained, up-dated lists is an economic necessity and has the added desirability of creating uniformity of usage from library ot library. Since the use of lists is the norm, the list-makers must accept responsibility for viewing their reader as an aggregate who has varied social backgrounds and intellectual levels. Since the reader cannot be identified validly, assumptions about his probable psychological approach to a subject are unfounded.

The second fault of the axiom is that it violates the principle, constantly defended in regard to our collections, that libraries do not exhibit bias. If librarians defend their rights as educators to present all points of view in their collections (as stated in the Library Bill of Rights) they must accept their obligation to provide an approach to their collections that is equally without bias, one which does not reinforce psychological, sociological, economic, political, and other assumptions and prejudices of their public. Such obvious pandering to the "social backgrounds and intellectual levels" of a library's clientele as the entry of works under FILTHY BOOKS or NIGGERS would be castigated by the profession, which would recognise that such an obviously biased approach to the material also biased the material, whatever its content.

In its headings referring to persons, the LC list unfortunately reflects the application of Haykin's axiom. The list's bias and illogic reflect the list-makers' identification of the "majority reader" and the extrapolation from that identification that that reader is the norm. An examination of the list makes it clear that the "majority reader" and the norm, as far as LC is concerned, is white, Christian (often specifically Protestant,) male, and straight (heterosexual.)

Application of this norm is apparent in subject headings relating to so-called minority groups. Gays (or homosexuals, to use the list's terminology,) are actually not treated too badly in the list compared to other minorities. Male homosexuals and lesbians are both subsumed by the "see also" structure under "sexual deviations." Gays are identified as something outside the norm just like Blacks and women. To be outside the norm means, in the philosophy underlying the list, that everything you do is colored by your "normless" place in society. How does HOMOSEXUALS AS CONSUMERS grab you! Women, despite the amount of wealth they supposedly control, Blacks, and many other so-called minorities have not yet achieved the status of actually being consumers. They act out a role. They are WOMEN AS CONSUMERS, NEGROES AS CONSUMERS, etc. It is not merely . . . AS CONSUMERS that women, Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and others play roles. As proof of my norm theory, I offer the headings JEWS AS SCIENTISTS, an area of study in which that ethnic minority probably predominates. There is no heading CHRISTIANS AS SCIENTISTS because Christians are the norm, and the unadorned heading SCIENTISTS can be used to cover works about Christian scientists as well as works about scientists in general. Another example is WOMEN AS LIBRARIANS, about which no comment is necessary, except to point out that there is no heading MEN AS LIBRARIANS.

I believe the real problem with the Library of Congress subject heading list, therefore, lies behind the list and cannot be solved by attacking individual headings. Attacks on individual titles are vital, however, if we are to convince LC that the admittedly serious economic difficulties, both for LC and other libraries, presented by a drastic revision of the list must somehow be overcome. The list-makers' consciousness of the feelings and attitudes of people being categorized must be raised. For instance, the list distinguishes three special classes of people as criminals - Jews, Negroes, and Catholics. When Sanford Berman suggested that these headings exhibit a certain amount of bias, C. Sumner Spaulding of the Library of Congress took it upon himself to reply. He said that the criminal element of other groups is taken care of by the heading CRIME AND CRIMINALS, with geographic subdivision. Mr. Spaulding's defense of the list is understandable but it does not hold. JEWISH CRIMINALS and CRIME AND CRIMINALS - ISRAEL are not comparable approaches to material. Women are not even allowed the dubious dignity of being criminals; they are "delinquent." About ten years ago, the Library of Congress, in a burst of misplaced chivalry (or was it male chauvinism inspired by the rise of women's lib), cancelled WOMAN CRIMINALS and substitued DELINQUENT WOMEN, thereby cementing in subject heading form the unequal role relegated to women in our society.

To continue the attack on specific headings, consider the example of the rash reprints, many of them trash, with which our none-too-ethical publishers flooded the market (and libraries bought) following the establishment of Black or Afro-American studies in colleges all over the country. These necessitated establishing a heading to cover the peculiar oppression of Black women under slavery. But would you believe that in 1967 the Library of Congress established the entry MAMMIES! Could any of us, without mumbling embarrassed and probably useless apologies, even if we dared, tell a young, militant, Black woman who wanted material on this subject to look under MAMMIES! Why not SLAVERY IN THE U.S. - OPPRESSION OF WOMEN, or NEGRO WOMEN - OPPRESSION?

Or, better yet, why were the writings of young, militant, Black women not consulted? The answer to that question is that subject heading terminology reflects the terminology of "authorities in the field." To come up with the heading MAMMIES, LC must have considered the outdated reprints to be the "authority." LC's use of the terminology of authorities as criteria for establishing subject headings and classification scheme notation is affirmed in the Spring 1971 Library Resources and Technical Services, which includes a proposal by Thomas Yen-Ran Yeh to revise the treatment of the American Indian in the E-F LC classification schedules. Eugene T. Frosio, Principal Subject Cataloger, Library of Congress, in reply to a proposal that the word "massacre," which appears a number of times in the schedule, be replaced by the word "incident" says that, "events are not named according to what it is polite or ideal to call them, but according to what they are actually called by authorities in the field. Therefore, the names of special engagements which have been named 'massacre' must stand. We note, as an example, that the 1967 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, in almost every instance, also refers to the engagements we call 'massacres' as 'massacres.'" It seems logical, then, if the incident at Natchez in 1729 was a massacre in which the Indians were the culprits, the incident at Wounded Knee was a massacre in which the U.S. Cavalry was certainly the culprit. Yet, though the classification scheme describes the incident as a massacre, the subject heading is WOUNDED KNEE CREEK, BATTLE OF, 1890. Perhaps two sets of authorities were consulted, or perhaps this is another instance of the application of the norm.

I would like to suggest to the list-makers that, if in creating non-WASP subject headings, they also at least consulted non-WASP authorities, the list would show less bias.

More and more people are becoming aware of the serious social inequities that exist in this country. Sanford Berman's book should go a long way toward pointing out that these inequities are reflected in the Library of Congress subject heading list. I hope the time is ripe to let the Library of Congress, librarians, and the politicans who control the purse strings know that we want something done! For me, at least, the most outrageous heading of all is YELLOW PERIL. It really exists; one wonders what "authority" was consulted. It is time to let those in a position to do something about it know that YELLOW PERIL and its fellow monstrosities must be purged.