information regarding genre headings

Do you all know about LC's plan to add 655, genre headings to records? This is different from and/or in addition to #v which has been used with subjects to express that the material contained within the manifestation is about the subject. Here is some info from the OCLC blog which supports the use of 655, which some think is redundant because we already use #v in headings. I think each library can do what they want, that is, implement and use 655 field in their catalog or not. The message from OCLC listserv starts below:


Well, I must admit when I initially submitted my 655 genre tag question to this list I had no idea what a Pandora's box I would be opening! I must also admit that I have found the discussion of this particular issue (and it does seem to be an issue) to be most interesting and enlightening. It has really given me some food for thought in regard to the coding of genre headings in our opac and in opacs in general.

Someone on this list stated that genre headings (in the 655 MARC field) cannot be subdivided. I find this odd since other 6xx fields can be subdivided, and I would appreciate knowing exactly where it states in any documentation that this is the case (which I may very well have overlooked).

Lindsey Martin



Joel Hahn wrote:
David Girshick wrote:> ... our end users cannot tell the difference between the ABOUT and theFORM/GENRE.I think you are likely selling your users short--anyone who has made itthrough high school (and many others who haven't gotten there yet)probably has enough of an idea what a "genre" is and how it differs froma subject, even if they can't properly pronounce the word.And even if not, it's a simple enough concept to briefly explain that 30seconds of B.I. or a "what am I" popup definition in the OPAC should besufficient.> Few catalogs separate them and if they did, few customers wouldunderstand the separation. Most searches are just keyword to beginwith.In 2007 so far, around 51% of all of the searches done in our OPAC were"general" keyword searches a la Google. The remaining 49% were authorkeyword, title keyword, subject keyword, series keyword, genre keyword,one of the other keyword indexes, some combination of the above, authorbrowse, title browse, or subject browse.So while 51% might technically be "most", I do not think it is enough tosay that anything more specific is only understood by a few and shouldnot be supported.Frank Newton wrote:> I think there is general agreement in favor of Love stories > and Western films as subject headings, but no general agreement > in favor of SEPARATING THEM OUT from 650 subject headings.Why do we also have 600, 610, 611, 630, and 651 headings? Why aren'tthey all 650 headings, or even simpler, just 600 headings? Especiallyif "most searches are just keyword to begin with."Because there are a significant number of people out there who DO knowhow to search a catalog beyond the simplicity of a general keywordsearch, DO benefit from being able to specify "subject: person" vs."subject: topic" vs. "subject: genre" vs. "subject: title", and whowould suffer a significant drop in service from the library if thatability were taken away.