1. Zhang, 1
Di Zhang
LIS 531 B
27 November 2011
Assignment 3- Subject Analysis
Subject analysis is an essential part of cataloging.It serves the dual function of
location (finding the subject under the name you are looking for) and collocation (finding
all the documents in the system that share the subject) (Chan, p. 195). The Library of
Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) is a product of decades of (and ongoing) subject
analysis. LCSH uses enumerative classification, in which subject headings are listed
alphabetically for the benefit of direct access (Svenonius, 250). In this paper, I will use
the LCSH as well as Subject Heading Manual (SMH) to assign subject headings for the
article titled ―The Harried Life of the Working Mother.‖ I begin by analyzing the article
for its main concepts before assigning subject headings to represent those concepts.
Throughout the subject cataloging process, I hope to adequately justify my choices in
identifying and selecting terms.
Conceptual Analysis:
Working mothers- Possible topical subdivisions: happiness/satisfaction/well-being
Gender role- Possible topical subdivisions: family and work, public opinion
Employment inequalityor glass ceiling- Possible subdivisions common to all three
concepts: [Place]—United States, [Time]—early 21st century, [Form]—research
report/survey...(website?)

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Specificity
Specificity is an important principle to indexing languages, especially LCSH,
because it has been classification-free since its inception. Its approach is one that is
alphabetic and direct rather than classified and indirect and therefore needs the
appropriate level of specificity at the main entry point (heading) (Svenonius, 244). This
means that the lead/main/focal heading(s) must be specific enough that, to the greatest
extent possible, the specific subject(s) and only the specific subjects covered in the work
are described by the heading.
I believe the concepts that I have extracted from the document have appropriate
levels of specificity. When it comes to ―working mothers,‖ the title alone suggests that
the term represents the ―aboutness‖ of the document. A deeper look into the text confirms
my suspicions. The document is broken up into various sections that explain the results of
a survey of working mothers, from women’s growing presence in the workforce to why
some working mothers (especially those with young children) feel pressure not to work.
It would be inappropriate for me to make the main heading ―working parents‖ because
the work is focused primarily on mothers, although statistics on working fathers serve as
notes of comparison. Likewise, it would be inappropriate for me to be too specific in my
entry by using term such as ―high income mothers‖ or ―working mothers of color‖
because this is only covers a subset of the subject ―working mothers.‖ Therefore, the
concept ―working mothers‖ seems to offer the appropriate level of specificity for
cataloging this document. A topical subdivision that seems appropriate to the document is

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something that addresses the fact that the document is primarily concerned with the
happiness/satisfaction/well-being of working mothers.
Gender roles also seem to be an important concept covered by the document,
specifically women’s roles in the home and in the workplace.For example, the document
has a major section with the heading ―Public Views on the Changing Role of Women,‖
which includes data on public views on family and marriage as well as childcare and
work. One of the document’s sections discusses ―The Day-to-Day Lives of Working
Moms and Dads. Therefore, I believe that ―family and work‖ is a concept that deserves to
be a topical subdivision. Furthermore, the subdivision ―public opinion‖ would be
appropriate because it addresses the fact that the document is reporting social and
demographic trends rather than theoretical or philosophical discussions of gender roles.
Lastly, one less talked-about yet still important topic is that of employment
inequality. The document has a section with the heading ―The Glass Ceiling: Is Family a
Factor?‖ which uses survey data to explain public perception of why women have not
risen to the top ranks of American business and politics. Therefore, ―Employment
inequality‖ or ―Glass ceiling‖ would be appropriate main headings, depending on what
terms are available from LCSH.
Coextensivity
Coextensivity refers to the practice of assigning terms to all the important concepts in
a document. We can never be absolutely sure that all the important concepts are
expressed in the terms assigned, because assigning terms is a subjective process.

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However, I believe that a careful examination of the document will confirm that most of
the major concepts are reasonably covered under my four concepts:
1. Working mothers- happiness/satisfaction/well-being- United States—early 21st
century—survey
2. Gender roles—family and work—United States—early 21st century—survey
3. Gender roles—public opinion—United States—early 21st century—survey
4. Employment inequality—United States—early 21st century—surveyor
Glass ceiling—United States—early 21st century—survey
Thus, I think my initial conceptual headings fulfill the general rule for H 180 of
the Subject Heading Manual (SHM), which states: ―Assign to the work being cataloged
one or more subject headings that best summarize the overall contents of the work and
provide access to its most important topics.‖I should note that the last subject heading is
the least important. According to H 180, one should assign headings only for topics that
comprise at least 20% of the work. The topic of glass ceilings hovers around 20%, so it
may not be as relevant as the other topics.
The Subject Search:
A keyword search for ―Working mothers‖ on Classification web yielded 6 results,
one of which was the exact term I was looking for.The broader term is ―Mothers‖ and
there are no narrower terms. The scope notes state: ―Here are entered works on the social
conditions of mothers apart from their workplace and on how work affects the quality of

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life of mothers.‖ This seems right on the money, because it addresses the quality of life of
mothers outside of workplace conditions. The heading covers my
happiness/satisfaction/well-being concept without needing any further topical
subdivisions. And because the subject allows for geographic subdivision, so I will add the
subdivision ―—United States‖.
The second heading gave me difficulties, because I could not find the term
―Gender roles‖ under a keyword search. The LC subject search directed me to the term
―Sex roles,‖ which seemed too vague and broad and brought up questions of whether
gender/sex were the appropriate terms for me to use in the first place. Scanning down to
the narrower terms, I found the term ―Sexual division of labor,‖ which seemed the most
appropriate because the work being cataloged has to do with labor in the home and in the
workplace, as opposed to other potential ―gender/sex roles.‖ Thus, the narrower term
turned out to be more appropriate than the broader term I had in mind for the main
heading. The LC conveniently has the heading with a geographical subdivision for
United States. When it comes to free-floating subdivisions, I looked in H 1095 for the
terms ―work and family‖ as well as ―public opinion‖ and only found a subdivision for the
latter. Public opinion gives the option to ―[u]se under names of individual persons and
corporate bodies, and under classes of persons, ethnic groups, individual wars, and
topical headings for works on public opinion on those persons or topics.‖ In H1955 of the
Special Topics section of the SHM, the discussion of public opinion confirms that the
term is appropriate for my purposes. The general rule states: ―Assign to works about
public opinion on a topic the following combination of headings:

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(1) [topic]—[place, if appropriate]—Public opinion
(2) Public opinion—[place]
Thus, the MARC format for these headings would be:
650 _0 $a Sexual division of labor—United States $x Public opinion
650 _0 $a Public opinion $z United States
I began my search for the third term by doing a LC subject search on ―Glass
ceiling,‖ which yielded the term ―Glass ceiling (Employment discrimination).‖ The scope
notes state: ―Here are entered works on an unacknowledged barrier to career
advancement experienced by women and minorities.‖ For the purposes of this work I’m
cataloging, I would have preferred the phrase ―unseen, seemingly unbreachable barrier‖
(or something to that effect) rather than the phrase ―unacknowledged.‖ The term
unacknowledged is vague because it raises questions such as ―unacknowledged by
whom? Women? Society at large?‖ However, the scope notes still offer the general
concept that I am looking for. In other words, the heading ―Glass ceiling (Employment
discrimination)‖already contextualizes the concept enough that I do not need topical
subdivisions.
Other subdivisions:
Both of the headings ―Working mothers‖ and ―Glass ceiling (Employment
discrimination)‖ allow for geographic subdivision, so I use geographic subdivisions
under the rules of H 830 to indicate that the region being reported on is the country of the

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United States (indicated by the repeated use of the term ―American‖ in the document,
although the term ―United States‖ was never used). Under H 1140, free-floating
subdivisions for names of places, the form subdivision ―survey‖ is allowed, so I will add
this to the headings for the work being cataloged, which is basically a report of a survey
of working mothers in the United States. Upon further review of H 1075, the subdivisions
section of the SHM, it does not make much sense to use chronological subdivisions
because such subdivision are usually associated with a historical treatment of a topic and
are established under topics after the subdivision ―–History‖ (H 1075 1c).
Conclusion:
After the process described above, I have constructed the following subject
headings for the article entitled ―The Harried Life of the Working Mother‖:
650 _0 $aWorking mothers $z United States $v Surveys
650 _0 $a Sexual division of labor—United States $x Public opinion $v Surveys
650 _0 $a Public opinion $z United States $v Surveys
650 _0 $a Glass ceiling (Employment discrimination) $z United States $v Surveys
I have listed ―Working mothers‖ as my first subject heading because it represents
the most prevalent theme of the document. That is, every section in the document deals
with the topic of working mothers, whereas the other subject headings either are
represented in just one or two sections or are not sufficiently strong statements of the
―aboutness‖ of the work (e.g. ―Public opinion‖).

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It is important to note that subject analysis is inherently a subjective, interpretive
process. According to Mai: ―[when] two people who look at the same thing [they] may
not see the same subject matter‖ (p. 271).1 Despite the vagueness of manuals about
subject identification, subject analysis is an art that if done well can help the user
immensely in finding the resources on the subjects they need.
1
This was one of the readings from your LIS 530 class that I took in spring 2011. Unfortunately, I cannot
find the bibliographic information to cite it properly.