Based on our SAC meetings, there seemed to be strong support for starting a working group to identify a pathway to sustain the user benefits of using $v subdivisions in LCSH. There was a lot of discussion about possible ways to do that, but deciding the pathway forward seemed to rely on library infrastructure's ability to handle a pivot in how those subdivisions are maintained.
Since we couldn't discuss a possible charge during the meeting, I wanted to post a draft here in Connect to give folks time to provide feedback. I tried to capture the major themes of the discussion, but please let me know if I missed or misunderstood something. I would appreciate if you could make comments before Friday, March 13th, so we can keep moving the work forward.
Draft charge: Examine the technical feasibility of maintaining discontinued Library of Congress form subdivisions ($v) within current library infrastructures, either by sustaining a fork of LCSH subdivisions by a non-LC body, by adopting a non-LC alternative vocabulary, or by working with vendors to retain and maintain records with the subfields pending a long-term resolution. The group will conduct a vendor capability assessment with OCLC and ILS vendors and review existing implementations of alternative or forked vocabularies. Findings will be weighed against resource requirements and implementation burden, and the group will present a comparative assessment of each pathway's feasibility to the committee.
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Sasha Frizzell
Catalog / Metadata Management Librarian
Binghamton University
She/Her/Hers,They/Them/Theirs
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