Cataloging a Book Report

Tiffany Legare
LM 5020.OL1
Professor Stephanie Charlefour
April 5, 2023
 At the beginning of this week’s assignment, I was rather nervous to catalog my assigned

book, Welcome to your Period! Without prior cataloging knowledge, it was daunting to begin the

task. To catalog my book, I searched the title and copied someone else’s record. This provided

me with a solid foundation to catalog after verifying the information on the record.

One area of the MARC record that I customized was the subject headings. Initially the

record had two subject headings which were “menstruation” and “teenage girl—Health and

hygiene.” While these subject headings accurately reflect the content of the book, I found the

language to be outside what a middle school student would use when searching for the book or

books with similar content. To expand the subject heading list, I added “Puberty” as a broader

heading. A student may not think to search using the term menstruation because it is a lesser

used word for children and is more difficult to spell. Puberty is more commonly used as it

applies to people of all gender identities and is more accessible word for a child’s vocabulary.

In addition to broadening the subject headings, I selected adding additional subject

headings as my advanced catalog option to add gender neutral language to the record. I chose to

add “Teenager—Health and hygiene” as a subject heading. As Amanda Ros states in The bias

hiding in your library, “the issue is that, by prioritizing certain subjects over one another, it

might be more difficult for readers to find what they’re looking for” (2019). Initially, the record

used “Teenage girl—Health and hygiene” as a subject heading which created a narrowed and

reinforced gender biases by prioritizing teenage girls. My goal in adding “Teenager—Health and

hygiene” was to expand the scope of the search and subject heading to include all gender

identities. A student who does not identify has female may not think to specify teenage girl when

searching by subject. Adding additional subject headings seems most applicable to my ideal

library which is another reason why I selected it as my advanced technique for this assignment. I
want my catalog to be inclusive and reflect the searching needs of my users. I am interested to

learn more about adding local subject headings to catalog records. I believe this technique may

become more applicable as I learn more about it.

The concept I struggled with the most while cataloging was assigning the call number. I

was very torn between keeping the assigned call number or ditching the Dewey Decimal System.

After doing some research, the Dewey-Lite system that “hacks Dewey to remove its underlying

biases and idiosyncrasies by adding another layer of classification over the Dewey number”

(Marrocolla, 2019). Through this system nonfiction books are first grouped by their likeness, and

then arranged in Dewey order which perfectly captured how I wanted to organize my books. I

decided to customize my call number to be HEALTH 612.6/62 STY. Health represents the

general subject, 612.6/62 is the Dewey classification, and STY signifies the author. The

additional research about different systems of classifications and ways to customize call numbers

helped me overcome my initial trepidation. Ultimately, I want my collection to be accessible to

my students. I have found students struggle to understand the Dewey Decimal System, so in

using the Dewey-Lite system my students will be able to navigate the library based on subject

first while providing exposure to the Dewey Decimal System for additional learning

opportunities.

While I was initially intimidated by the cataloging process, the exposure to cataloging

helped me understand the importance of maintaining an accurate and accessible system.

Although I found assigning a call number confusing, I was able to overcome the struggle by

breaking my thought process down and doing additional research. I also referred to the

Catalogers Bookshelf in Module 2 to familiarize myself with terms, systems, and subject

headings.
 References

Marrocolla, E. G. (2019, October 1). The trouble with Dewey. School Library Journal. Retrieved

April 5, 2023, from https://www.slj.com/story/The-Trouble-with-Dewey-libraries.

Ros, A. (2019, March 20). The bias hiding in your library. The Conversation. Retrieved April 5,

2023, from https://theconversation.com/the-bias-hiding-in-your-library-111951.