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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > This is a question in the "idle curiosity" category, directed > to my cataloger colleagues. > > As a non-cataloger, and on behalf of the Performing Arts Subject > Specialist who selected for our library: Fringe and Fortune, The > Role of Critics in High and Popular Art, by W.M. Shrum, > Princeton, 1996, I would be interested in knowing why the LC CIP put > this title in N 72, when it is about the Edinburgh Fringe > Festival, primarily a performing arts/drama/theatre rather than > a visual art event. CIP is based on whatever LC receives from the publisher, usually the galleys and an information sheet. N72 is broken into subjects so it must have appeared to the cataloger that it was "art in relation to [some] subject." From *your* description, it sounds like NX might have been more appropriate. Classification and subject analysis may be the most subjective (no surprise!?) part of cataloging. All cataloging seems to be getting rushed these days and the subjective perhaps loses most in snap decisions. You know: just pick something!! > > Would this be a simple mistake, or am I correct in thinking that > appropriate classification does not get much attention these > days, at LC or elsewhere? I guess I'd say it's probably a different interpretation of the contents, probably based on incomplete evidence, and perhaps less knowledge of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Kathy Zimon Library, LT 918 > Fine Arts Librarian & Curator 2500 University Drive N.W. > Canadian Architectural Archives Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 > University of Calgary TEL: (403) 220-3795 FAX: 282-6837 > e-mail: [log in to unmask] > Original comments by Kathy Zimon; reply by Sherman Clarke, NYU Libraries - [log in to unmask]