LCSH & SACO August 2015: says no to Hypermasculinity, yes to Elephants--War use, Imaginary space vehicles, and Pregnant students

Highlights from the August 2015 SACO editorial meeting and LCSH monthly list.

SACO, emphases theirs

Choctaw Trail of Tears, 1831-1832

A fundamental principle of controlled vocabularies is that there is only one heading to represent a single concept. In this case, the free-floating subdivision Choctaw Indians—Relocation covers the removal of the Choctaw from the Deep South to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). To change the heading, there would have to be strong and unquestionable evidence that the relocation of the Choctaw Indians is generally known by the name Trail of Tears. PSD searched in several standard reference sources and was not able to find any evidence of that type. Choctaw Indians—Relocation should continue to be assigned. The proposal was not approved.

The ten references to < choctaw "trail of tears" > and 298 < "trail of tears" > in LC's catalog aside, sometimes standard reference sources are biased, so maybe it's worthwhile to examine or privilege resources outside the mainstream or those of the Choctaw Nation itself.

Hypermasculinity

The source citations consist of a list of titles and a Wikipedia citation. Wikipedia is not considered authoritative for subject proposal purposes (see the revision of H 202 sec. 1.b, available at http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeSHM/freeshm/H0202.pdf and various announcements in Summaries of Decisions since 2011). Since hypermasculinity is a psychological concept, authoritative reference works in the discipline of psychology should be consulted for a definition of the term. In addition, a cataloger’s note indicated that hypermasculinity may be confused with the existing heading Machismo. If that is the case, then research on machismo should also be carried out, and the definitions of machismo that are found should be used to construct a contrasting scope note with Hypermasculinity (see H 400 sec. 1, “Two or more closely related or overlapping headings”). The proposal may be resubmitted.

SACO members drink male tears!

LCSH, emphases mine

150 Elephants--War use [May Subd Geog] [sp2014002356](C)
450 UF War use of elephants
550 BT Animals--War use

150 Imaginary space vehicles [Not Subd Geog] [sp2015001472](C)
550 BT Imaginary vehicles
550 BT Space vehicles

Note that they do not allow this heading to subdivide geographically.

150 Pregnant students [May Subd Geog] [sp2015001572](C)
550 BT Students

Useful. I'd like to see Pregnant set to modify schools, too, like Pregnant graduate students or Pregnant high school students.