TO FIND OR NOT TO FIND

As you have probably noticed by now, I have a love-hate relationship with computers. While I believe firmly that they will crash at will simply to remind us who is in charge, and keep us humble, I appreciate the power they give us to do things that would otherwise be, if not impossible, at least daunting.

One of these things is finding what we need in libraries (and now the internet) without having to guess how catalogers would describe our subject. Free text and boolean searching liberates us from catalogers and indexers. This may seem like a small boon to you, unless you realize how utterly perverse some catalogers can be.

Those who have reached god-like dimensions of perversity get to catalog at the Library of Congress; virtually all libraries in American then draw their own cataloging directly from the Received Word of the Library of Congress.

One problem with some of the catalogers there is their quest for the one, true, exact term to describe the work in front of them. One of my most cherished books is Edmund G. Love's THE SITUATION IN FLUSHING, his memoir of his boyhood in a small Michigan town. One might list this book under "Small Towns," for it is rich with funny stories about American small town life. One might list it under "Railroads-History," for Love as a boy, studied steam engines with a child's passion, running out to greet every train as it passed through town. It could also be listed under "Technology-Social aspects," for he chronicles the 20th century hitting his town about 20 years late, as automobiles and telephones transform the town, and as electric power is introduced under the auspices of a grumpy man who would cut off your electricity when he was annoyed with you.

The Library of Congress has classified this wonderful book under one, and only one, subject heading: "Flushing, Michigan--Social life and customs."

I consider this book to have been buried before it was born.

Sometimes Library of Congress catalogers create subject headings that most of us don't see a compelling need for. Like

Drug abuse--Programmed instruction

Low German wit and humor (I am unclear whether this is medieval German humor, or what Adolf and the boys were exchanging in the beer halls)

Sewage--Collected works

Other times catalogers don't seem to be living on the same planet with us. Where normal humans would use the word "Stupidity," the Library of Congress uses "Inefficiency, intellectual." (And they were doing this even before political correctness came into vogue.)

They certainly don't seem to be getting the same mental pictures most of us would get from some of their subject headings, such as "Diving for men." Not to mention "Surgery--Nutritional aspects."

Sometimes, of course, they are simply following mental processes that most of us don't. They think in heirarchies, starting with a large topic and tacking on subdivisions and sub-subdivisions into infinity. (Even the good folk at Yahoo follow this model.)

The problem with this is that our language doesn't work this way. We put modifiers in front of the modified. "Abortion-religious aspects" is the cataloging equivalent of "the necktie preposterous." So reference librarians are in the business of teaching people to think backwards to find what they want.

I remember trying to find a Supreme Court decision on comparable worth in the New York Times Index (whose indexers are clearly trying out for jobs at the Library of Congress). I looked under "Comparable worth." No such heading. I looked under "Pay equity." No such heading. I looked under "Employment-United States-Women." No such heading. I looked under the name of the decision. No luck. I finally tracked it down under "Women-United States-Employment-Wages and salaries."

Mind you, I'm not saying that this doesn't make sense, in a rigid, heirarchical sort of way. I'm just saying that most of us don't think in a rigid heirarchical way, and would appreciate at least a few cross-references. (And quite frankly, few of us are that determined. It takes a librarian to say, "I know this exists, and by God, I am going to find it!")

Librarians, happily, tend to be quite good at word games, so we can usually figure out the magic words that will retrieve what our patrons are looking for, so we don't complain on our own behalf. As I wrote in a birthday card for a cataloger once,

But it would be silly of me, and unjust,
And ungrateful in me to defame you.
As long as you're here, there'll always be jobs
For people like me to explain you.

That's what computers have done for us; with boolean free text searching, even amateurs can find at least a little of what they want. And if they can find one or two things, they can point and click their way to others, or they can use the subject headings on the records they found to look for more material.

In the process, they may, however, lose the important thing that catalogers have done for us. Catalogers have given us a wonderful guide to direct our thinking--the reminders that we could search under specified narrower or broader terms, or the reminders that the subject could be considered from different viewpoints. And that will be a pity.

Previous Columns: We Will Rock You, America in 9 Innings, Thank The Ludd, Target Market, Naming Names, Something Amyth , In Praise of Men, Small Truths , White Whine, Draft Dodger, Tar Baby, Sensible Lizards, Debut, Week 2, Hard Copy, Word Child, Every Other Inch A Lady, Naming of Books, Progress, maybe (sort of...), All Reasons Great & Small, On achieving perfect copy, OJ (On Justice), Waiting for Webster's, What Genes Have Wrought, Light Out, Staying on the Map, Don't just stand there..., Remotely Funny, No Government Day, Advice For Desperate Men, Why Kids

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