CATALOGUING FICTION AT THE VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY (VPL)
Since the early 1990s, the Vancouver Public Library has expanded subject access to works of popular fiction (such as mysteries, science fiction, and romances) by assigning "genre" subject headings such as Love stories, Western stories, etc. to the bibliographic records for works of fiction. Topics subdivided by the "form subdivision" - Fiction have also been added. For example:
Genre: Detective and mystery stories Topic with form subdivision: Police - England - London - Fiction
A genre heading is ANY heading used to denote "the thing itself," as opposed to discussions about the thing. For example, the following can all be used as genre headings:
Canadian fiction
French drama
Love poetry, English
Likewise, there are many form subdivisions besides - Fiction which can be used to denote "the thing itself," as opposed to discussions about the thing. For example:
- -- Dictionaries
- -- Bibliography
- -- Interactive multimedia
According to Linda Woodcock, Head of Cataloguing at VPL, over 60% of records come in with the required subject and form headings. (February 2003) However, there is absolutely no consistency in the use of genre and form headings on the catalogue records loaded into the system from external sources. When a book (rarely the book itself) ordered by the Popular Reading Library (PRL) arrives without assigned subject and form headings, a public service librarian in PRL examines the item and assigns appropriate headings that are then submitted to the cataloguing division, who determines the actual subject headings to be used. Sources for the subject headings are a combination of LCSH (from CIP or other sources), the GSAFD, and Hennepin County Library headings as needed. VPL has also created their own genre headings, such as:
Adventure thrillers
Crime thrillers
Ecological thrillers
Ecological fiction
Multimedia fiction
Spy thrillers
There has been a shift in the library community from using MARC 650 to use MARC 655 for genre headings (to denote what a work is [655] rather than what it is about [650]). For instance, items that had been assigned the 650 subject heading "Detective and mystery stories" should now have 655 "Mystery fiction" since they are works OF mystery fiction, not works ABOUT mystery fiction. However, it is a bit tricky to sort out since the 650 subject heading was used for works OF and works ABOUT. (Woodcock, 2003)
This process is an example of two important elements. First, it illustrates how public and technical services librarians work together to provide better subject access to fiction for library users. Second, this process illustrates VPL's recognition of the importance of providing increased access to fiction and of thinking about how the library user would best be served when searching the catalogue.