Finding Books with the Library of Congress Classification System

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

This article addresses the gap between recent scholarly critiques of the broader categorization of religion and the persistence of those categories in the LC classification system. Through this novel conversation, this article articulates two possible revision suggestions to the B class and subclasses that would distance the system of categorization from those troubling politics and better reflect the full diversity of human cultural expressions.

The past has a durable afterlife in the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). The classification of Eastern European history underlines this quality to dramatic effect. This article tells the story of "Subclass DJK - Eastern Europe (general)" and how its addition to the LCC in 1976 was part of a substantial effort to update the classification of Eastern European history to reflect current conditions in the region.

Following the long overdue cancellation of the Library of Congress Subject Heading "Illegal alien" many libraries are assessing options for remediating problematic descriptive language in their catalogs. This paper presents a method of evaluating LCSH corresponding to historically marginalized populations-women, African Americans, Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQIA + people-by measuring cooccurrences of LCSH and Library of Congress Classifications (LCC) across a library's collection.

This article first examines cultural limitations embedded in the Eurocentric Library of Congress Classification and calls for catalogers' sensitivity to authors' cultural background while cataloging the Bronze China archaeological materials. It then discusses the ambiguity in Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual H1225 and presents a debate on the necessity of including Chinese dynastic information in constructing subject headings through comparing facets extracted from this manual and title patterns of Chinese archaeological reports.

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.