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1MiraCheskis
I was pondering this morning in the shower...I've always been bothered by the way fiction books are handled in Library of Congress.
Why is it done nationally? It seems irrational to me. So I thought about it for a while. One can't necessarily organize by genre, because it might put author's works in too many different places...and genre lines are fuzzy anyways (SF/F especially...whoo boy). So what about era? Say...a century at a time, according to when the book was originally published? With a transition group between each one?
Ex:
19 century
(authors)
19th-20th transition
(authors)
20th century
(authors)
etc..
I mean...nationality can change (come to think of it, how DOES LoC handle that?). But the era in which the book was written? Naaaah. And put the translations with the original book. But would you separate by original language?
And would you separate out children's lit? How? There are some books that are clearly for children, but what about the borderline works...like C. S. Lewis's Narnia or Lloyd Alexander's Prydain?
...or am I just thinking about it too much? LOL XD
Why is it done nationally? It seems irrational to me. So I thought about it for a while. One can't necessarily organize by genre, because it might put author's works in too many different places...and genre lines are fuzzy anyways (SF/F especially...whoo boy). So what about era? Say...a century at a time, according to when the book was originally published? With a transition group between each one?
Ex:
19 century
(authors)
19th-20th transition
(authors)
20th century
(authors)
etc..
I mean...nationality can change (come to think of it, how DOES LoC handle that?). But the era in which the book was written? Naaaah. And put the translations with the original book. But would you separate by original language?
And would you separate out children's lit? How? There are some books that are clearly for children, but what about the borderline works...like C. S. Lewis's Narnia or Lloyd Alexander's Prydain?
...or am I just thinking about it too much? LOL XD
2kaelirenee
Library of Congress isn't really set up for distinguishing fiction in a detailed way. Dewey kind of is, but most public libraries change how they do it for the public anyways.
One thing I really like about the way LC does it's fiction is that all the books BY the author and ABOUT the author and his works are together. Rather than having to go elsewhere to find books about Shakespeare and criticisms on his works, I can find them all in the PR section.
As for genre-it's so fluid...I'm just thinking about my collection...where would all the cyberpunk and dystopia lit go? They aren't all sci-fi in the strictest sense.
As for juvenile-in general, anything written for highschool and younger is placed in PZ. This can sometimes make for some VERY interesting placements. Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime is PZ (PZ7 .H1165 Cu 2004); in fact most juvenile lit is in PZ7, which gets really unwheildy. We have a large juvenile section in our library because we have a huge education department-and more than 3/4 is PZ 7. But then, all of Roald Dahl is lumped into juvenile. The first time I saw Switch Bitch cataloged by LC as PZ3.D1373 Sw3, I was baffled. He may do most of his writing for kids, but Switch Bitch is most decidedly and ADULT story, as is My Uncle Oswald, which is also in there. Sometimes, it's very very screwy. But there will always be something screwy in cataloging. Cataloging requires discipline and order. Writing requires a revolt against structure; it requires creativity. That's why there's cataloger's judgement. Sometimes, this makes life very interesting...
One thing I really like about the way LC does it's fiction is that all the books BY the author and ABOUT the author and his works are together. Rather than having to go elsewhere to find books about Shakespeare and criticisms on his works, I can find them all in the PR section.
As for genre-it's so fluid...I'm just thinking about my collection...where would all the cyberpunk and dystopia lit go? They aren't all sci-fi in the strictest sense.
As for juvenile-in general, anything written for highschool and younger is placed in PZ. This can sometimes make for some VERY interesting placements. Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime is PZ (PZ7 .H1165 Cu 2004); in fact most juvenile lit is in PZ7, which gets really unwheildy. We have a large juvenile section in our library because we have a huge education department-and more than 3/4 is PZ 7. But then, all of Roald Dahl is lumped into juvenile. The first time I saw Switch Bitch cataloged by LC as PZ3.D1373 Sw3, I was baffled. He may do most of his writing for kids, but Switch Bitch is most decidedly and ADULT story, as is My Uncle Oswald, which is also in there. Sometimes, it's very very screwy. But there will always be something screwy in cataloging. Cataloging requires discipline and order. Writing requires a revolt against structure; it requires creativity. That's why there's cataloger's judgement. Sometimes, this makes life very interesting...
3Proclus
The classification is actually done primarily by language and only secondarily by nationality (thus PQ1-3999 Literature in French language, of which, e.g., PQ3900-3919 French Canadian lit. ; or PR-PS Literature in English, PS American, PR British & everywhere else in the world).
Most of the larger groupings are indeed split up by era (not when the book was published but by when the author first began publishing--or more realistically, when the author's publications first came to the notice of the library). Thus PS700-900, American literture of 17th & 18th centuries; PS1000-3400, 19th century; PS 3500-3599, 1900-1960; PS3550-3576, 1960-2000; and the brand-new range, PS3600-3626, 2001-. Authors arranged alphabetically within each group (though this can sometimes no longer be the case: Mark Twain is in the Cs, since the number was established when they were still calling him Samuel Clemens; and Chinese authors appear to be horribly out of order, since the transliteration system for Chinese has changed).
People who start writing in different languages are simply given different numbers in the appropriate language group. Thus for Vladimir Nabokov, PG3476.N3 (works originally written in Russian) and PS3527.A15 (work originally written in English). Translations generally are put with the original work, except for certain very prolific or popular authors.
Children's lit (PZ5+) is sometimes a question as to what exactly should go there.
The numbers PZ1-PZ4 (current and standard fiction) are obsolete and no longer used for current cataloging.
Most of the larger groupings are indeed split up by era (not when the book was published but by when the author first began publishing--or more realistically, when the author's publications first came to the notice of the library). Thus PS700-900, American literture of 17th & 18th centuries; PS1000-3400, 19th century; PS 3500-3599, 1900-1960; PS3550-3576, 1960-2000; and the brand-new range, PS3600-3626, 2001-. Authors arranged alphabetically within each group (though this can sometimes no longer be the case: Mark Twain is in the Cs, since the number was established when they were still calling him Samuel Clemens; and Chinese authors appear to be horribly out of order, since the transliteration system for Chinese has changed).
People who start writing in different languages are simply given different numbers in the appropriate language group. Thus for Vladimir Nabokov, PG3476.N3 (works originally written in Russian) and PS3527.A15 (work originally written in English). Translations generally are put with the original work, except for certain very prolific or popular authors.
Children's lit (PZ5+) is sometimes a question as to what exactly should go there.
The numbers PZ1-PZ4 (current and standard fiction) are obsolete and no longer used for current cataloging.
4MiraCheskis
#2:
How do they change it? I've seen the usage of "FICTION" as part of the call number, and I know they often separate by genre, but...what have you seen?
Heh...private collections... I just separated all my fiction (including poetry and graphic novels) from the nonfiction. Fiction just gets alphabetically by author's last name...as always.
~~
#3:
Ohhhhhhhh.
I'd only seen the "American Lit" and "British Lit" and so on. XD Heh... *embarassed* I'd noticed, too, that the PZs we have start at...7, I believe. It's mostly 7, 8, 8.3...then it jumps to 73 or 83 or something like that. Whee, sketchy memory. It's really one of our least favorite sections 'cause it's always a mess. Like our TR. XP
That explains, too, why some of the sections are SO huge. PS 3553-3557ish is huge.
By "when the author first began publishing", you mean...so even if the author, say, wrote something and it was published after the author's death, it would be under the date of the publication, not the date of the writing (since that may be impossible to obtain).
I would assume that, when an author has works in multiple languages, there's some kind of note in the system to indicate that...but is there? Or is it too complicated to do that? :o
How do they change it? I've seen the usage of "FICTION" as part of the call number, and I know they often separate by genre, but...what have you seen?
Heh...private collections... I just separated all my fiction (including poetry and graphic novels) from the nonfiction. Fiction just gets alphabetically by author's last name...as always.
~~
#3:
Ohhhhhhhh.
I'd only seen the "American Lit" and "British Lit" and so on. XD Heh... *embarassed* I'd noticed, too, that the PZs we have start at...7, I believe. It's mostly 7, 8, 8.3...then it jumps to 73 or 83 or something like that. Whee, sketchy memory. It's really one of our least favorite sections 'cause it's always a mess. Like our TR. XP
That explains, too, why some of the sections are SO huge. PS 3553-3557ish is huge.
By "when the author first began publishing", you mean...so even if the author, say, wrote something and it was published after the author's death, it would be under the date of the publication, not the date of the writing (since that may be impossible to obtain).
I would assume that, when an author has works in multiple languages, there's some kind of note in the system to indicate that...but is there? Or is it too complicated to do that? :o
5kaelirenee
#4-in Dewey, fiction isn't normally listed as F last name. It's generally somewhere in the 800s-sometimes they get scattered a bit, too. But libraries change to the convention we're all used to. LC is normally used in academic libraries and Dewey in public libraries. Public libraries (at least, from what I've noticed) try to make books easier to find for the general public than do academic libraries. That's why they separate out the fiction, the juvenile and young adult, the paperbacks, and even sometimes the sci-fi, mystery and romance. Academic libraries make you look.
If the work is a translation, there is generally a note in the MARC record (41 will say the languages, translator will often be listed right next to the author/creator, sometimes the notes section will have additional information).
Here's a link to the classification outline of the P section:
http://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_p.pdf
It might help you get a better idea of the logic behind the system.
If the work is a translation, there is generally a note in the MARC record (41 will say the languages, translator will often be listed right next to the author/creator, sometimes the notes section will have additional information).
Here's a link to the classification outline of the P section:
http://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_p.pdf
It might help you get a better idea of the logic behind the system.
6HeathMochaFrost
>5 kaelirenee: kaelirenee - Thanks so much for that link.
MiraCheskis - I was in library school in 1996 and 1997, and during my cataloging class, summer of '97, is when I learned about that cut-off date of 1960 in the PS section (mentioned by Proclus in message # 3). What really bothered me was having Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath so very far apart, when they were not just contemporaries, but even took a class together under Robert Lowell. Proclus's note in # 3 about the year the author began publishing is right on, but if memory serves, that's the year the author began publishing IN THE U.S. Plath's first book was published in 1960, same as Sexton's, but it was published in England, where Plath was living at the time, so it seems to me that publications by American writers outside the U.S. aren't "counted" by LC's Classification.
Sorry if that sounded like a rant! Anyway, the larger question of how to classify "imaginative literature" - fiction, poetry, and drama - became a great interest of mine, and in 1998, I developed a classification method for my own books - though it doesn't have a notation system, there aren't any call numbers or shelf labels, probably because I don't have time to devote to it. But it's essentially chronological, so that authors like Plath and Sexton, who lived, wrote, and published during the same years, WILL BE close to one another on the shelf.
MiraCheskis - I was in library school in 1996 and 1997, and during my cataloging class, summer of '97, is when I learned about that cut-off date of 1960 in the PS section (mentioned by Proclus in message # 3). What really bothered me was having Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath so very far apart, when they were not just contemporaries, but even took a class together under Robert Lowell. Proclus's note in # 3 about the year the author began publishing is right on, but if memory serves, that's the year the author began publishing IN THE U.S. Plath's first book was published in 1960, same as Sexton's, but it was published in England, where Plath was living at the time, so it seems to me that publications by American writers outside the U.S. aren't "counted" by LC's Classification.
Sorry if that sounded like a rant! Anyway, the larger question of how to classify "imaginative literature" - fiction, poetry, and drama - became a great interest of mine, and in 1998, I developed a classification method for my own books - though it doesn't have a notation system, there aren't any call numbers or shelf labels, probably because I don't have time to devote to it. But it's essentially chronological, so that authors like Plath and Sexton, who lived, wrote, and published during the same years, WILL BE close to one another on the shelf.
7kaelirenee
That's the nice thing about being in charge of one's own classification and shelf order! I prefer having my fiction authors in alphabetical order by last name, but I also put works ABOUT them and their works right next to them on the shelf. I have a semi-modified LC system. But then, I've gone through and changed A BUNCH of the LC call #s in my books. There's something about having all my books about religion randomly interupted by Emily Post that grates on my nerves (in the B section), so I changed it.
8modalursine
Ref #7
Well, no accounting for taste. I dont think I'ld want War and Peace put next to a biography of Tolstoy.
When I want to find my War and Peace I'ld expect it under fiction, filed by Author.
But since there really was a Tolstoy, his biography (at least in my head) is non fiction and goes under the appropriate non fiction subject.
Come to think of it, Biography and Autobiography are a kind of special case. It would be nice to have biographies of the same person close together, filed say by subject of the biography, then by the name of the biographer after that, and the whole lot under Biography so all the biographies are near each other.
Well, no accounting for taste. I dont think I'ld want War and Peace put next to a biography of Tolstoy.
When I want to find my War and Peace I'ld expect it under fiction, filed by Author.
But since there really was a Tolstoy, his biography (at least in my head) is non fiction and goes under the appropriate non fiction subject.
Come to think of it, Biography and Autobiography are a kind of special case. It would be nice to have biographies of the same person close together, filed say by subject of the biography, then by the name of the biographer after that, and the whole lot under Biography so all the biographies are near each other.
9modalursine
We have lots of "junk" fiction, by which I mean mystery (Police procedurals?) sci-fi and "fantasy".
All of those I suppose could be considered "Genre" books and be put together. Still, what do I do with "The Annotated Alice" ....Somehow that doesnt seem to fit next to some junk paperback.
Even within genre, Niven writes "hard sci fi" such as Ringworld, and more fantasy such as The flight of the horse. I'ld want them in the same pile.
Would you put Sherlock Holmes (a classic, after all)
in with just any old Who-dunit?
All of those I suppose could be considered "Genre" books and be put together. Still, what do I do with "The Annotated Alice" ....Somehow that doesnt seem to fit next to some junk paperback.
Even within genre, Niven writes "hard sci fi" such as Ringworld, and more fantasy such as The flight of the horse. I'ld want them in the same pile.
Would you put Sherlock Holmes (a classic, after all)
in with just any old Who-dunit?
10andyl
#9
What a strange way of thinking about things. Dickens after all was a populist author - he certainly wasn't considered high brow fiction in his day (indeed a number may have considered him 'junk'). Same for Bram Stoker and a number of other writers.
In the detective field we have writers such as Poe, Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers and others all with a decent reputation. As for SF you have Mary Shelley, Wells and Verne who are known to the wider public.
It is highly likely that many of the writers which you brand 'junk' will go on to have a lasting reputation in the same way as those writers I have mentioned. Philip K. Dick may almost be there (he was issued in a Library Of America edition earlier this year).
As HG Wells also wrote 'serious' stuff - I suppose you either move all his stuff to the 'junk' or all to 'literature' if you want to shelve them together. Also what about Kipling - he wrote scientific romances too? A similar problem exists with some more modern writers - for example Brian Aldiss and Iain M. Banks. Or even the other way around Doris Lessing being at the top of the class in that regard.
What a strange way of thinking about things. Dickens after all was a populist author - he certainly wasn't considered high brow fiction in his day (indeed a number may have considered him 'junk'). Same for Bram Stoker and a number of other writers.
In the detective field we have writers such as Poe, Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers and others all with a decent reputation. As for SF you have Mary Shelley, Wells and Verne who are known to the wider public.
It is highly likely that many of the writers which you brand 'junk' will go on to have a lasting reputation in the same way as those writers I have mentioned. Philip K. Dick may almost be there (he was issued in a Library Of America edition earlier this year).
As HG Wells also wrote 'serious' stuff - I suppose you either move all his stuff to the 'junk' or all to 'literature' if you want to shelve them together. Also what about Kipling - he wrote scientific romances too? A similar problem exists with some more modern writers - for example Brian Aldiss and Iain M. Banks. Or even the other way around Doris Lessing being at the top of the class in that regard.
11modalursine
ref#10
Hmmm....good point.
In fact, we were facing something like that in considering what to do with Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Elsa (my wife) tends to be more "hard core" about it, says "The rest of his stuff is Cyber Punk, stick in in 'Genre', but Pattern Recognition is his 'crossover' work, put it in 'real' (Hoo boy!, here come the thunderbolts, eh?) fiction.
I also see I have to pick my words a bit more carefully. I didnt (conciously) mean to imply that Sci Fi is ipso facto junk, I Looooove sci fi. But on the other hand, I can burn through most sci fi at warp speed (doesnt last) and basically, I've got to read a whole lot of er "chaff" to get a decent load of the good stuff. I suppose we could say that about any contemporary fiction....there's a lot out there but necessarily a small part is way better than the rest.
Hmmm....good point.
In fact, we were facing something like that in considering what to do with Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Elsa (my wife) tends to be more "hard core" about it, says "The rest of his stuff is Cyber Punk, stick in in 'Genre', but Pattern Recognition is his 'crossover' work, put it in 'real' (Hoo boy!, here come the thunderbolts, eh?) fiction.
I also see I have to pick my words a bit more carefully. I didnt (conciously) mean to imply that Sci Fi is ipso facto junk, I Looooove sci fi. But on the other hand, I can burn through most sci fi at warp speed (doesnt last) and basically, I've got to read a whole lot of er "chaff" to get a decent load of the good stuff. I suppose we could say that about any contemporary fiction....there's a lot out there but necessarily a small part is way better than the rest.
12kicking_k
I have a "life writing" section on my bookshelves at home which takes in biography and autobiography, memoirs, collections of letters and so forth.
Admittedly the name sounds a bit pretentious. Blame Hermione Lee, who taught a course of that name which I took as an undergraduate.
Admittedly the name sounds a bit pretentious. Blame Hermione Lee, who taught a course of that name which I took as an undergraduate.
13shmjay
>6 HeathMochaFrost: Unfortunately any cut-off date will be arbitrary, and someone will always be affected.
