Subject access and accessible cataloging

Elaine Yontz says: “If service to Hispanic patrons is not yet a major concern of your library, it will be soon.” We know that the Spanish speaking population is rapidly increasing in many areas across the country and every indication is that this segment of our population will continue to grow. Given this, it seems logical to conclude, as she does, that: “To lobby for a certain amount of consistency in the cataloging produced for national use is reasonable. Likewise, we should encourage utilities and vendors to catalog with more sensitivity to special populations.” She enumerates three current systems, LCSH, AC program, and Bilindex, and proceeds to analyze their effectiveness using the works of Mora. She finds them all extremely inadequate. 

She does advocate using MARC fields on a local level to make sure a library’s materials are at least accessible to it’s own immediate users, pointing out that “needed materials which cannot be found by patrons or by the librarians who help them represent a waste of valuable resources and do not, for practical purposes, even exist.” At least by identifying materials through MARC fields like 520, 650 and/or 690 will enable the local library and it’s patrons to have “a consistent access point" so that items can be located efficiently and certainly. When Yontz says that "this kind of editing can be done by anyone who can read, think, and type,” I thought: Aha! Our mission in SMA is defined!

Her point that “individual librarians must accept ultimate responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of their catalogs”also made me think that we must ensure that the soon to be released RDA has this covered better that the current systems.

 

Immroth, B. & McCook, K. de la P. (2000).  Library services to youth of Hispanic heritage.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland.  Subject access to fiction: A case study based on the works of Pat Mora, pp. 131-135.