Every Occurrence of N4 in the Library of Congress Classification Scheme

Amber Billey tweeted this yesterday, and she’s not wrong.

F2659.N4 is a good reminder of why we (as catalogers) still have work to do. #critcat #critlib #facepalm get it together, @librarycongress

— Amber Billey (@justbilley) March 24, 2016

This classification number is given for:

F2659.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Brazil—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

There are at least two things to talk about here:

1. Elements in the population  (link to my post about the phrase), but the short of it is — it’s a ubiquitous term in LCC which is used to indicate which people are not considered part of the ‘usual’ population
2. The term ‘Negroes’ itself — It needs to be changed, and it needs to be changed comprehensively.

Because this isn’t the only place it appears in LCC. Far. From. It.

Look, when we assign cutters, they don’t always correspond to an actual word, but hhere they do. Every single time, they do. At Emerson we had a very large collection of books about film. Sometimes when I’d direct patrons to find books on representation of African Americans and other Black people in cinema, I’d hope they wouldn’t notice the cutter. One time a patron asked me. It was uncomfortable for me, but you know what?

This isn’t about my discomfort — at all. My cringing as I told a patron that .N4 stood for ‘Negroes’ is nothing compared to the aggression, micro and macro that I put on that patron and that we put on our patrons every day, sending them to the stacks to browse there.

The fact of the matter is, that when providing a listing of ‘Elements in the population A-Z’ or ‘Special topics A-Z’, ‘Negro’ is used — a lot.

The following is every single occurrence:

(I’m only including when the term ‘Negro/es’ is in the actual caption, not counting back-end 453s — I’m also not including the hits for a specific group that still uses the term in their name, e.g. ‘United Negro College Fund’)

BF432.N5

Psychology—Consciousness. Cognition—Intelligence. Mental ability. Intelligence testing. Ability testing—By specific group of people, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks. African Americans

BR563.N4

Christianity—History—By region or country—America—North America—United States—By race or ethnic group, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

BX1407.N4

Christian denominations—Catholic Church—History—By region or country—North America—United States—Special topics, A-Z, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

BX8060.N5

Christian denominations—Other Protestant denominations—Lutheran churches—History—By region or country—America. United States—United States—Individual branches, synods, etc., of Lutherans—Mergers. Federations—Synods on a linguistic basis other than German—Other national or racial groups, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks. African Americans

D547.N4

History (General)—World War I (1914-1918)—Military operations—Western—English—Individual. By region or name, A-Z—Negroes

D639.N4

History (General)—World War I (1914-1918)—Special topics—Other special topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

D810.N4

History (General)—World War II (1939-1945)—Other special topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

DA125.N4

History of Great Britain—England—History—General special—Ethnography—Elements in the population—By element, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

E29.N3

America—General—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

E269.N3

United States—The Revolution, 1775-1783—Participation by race, ethnic group, religious group, etc., A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

E540.N3

United States—The Civil War, 1861-1865—Armies. Troops—The Union Army—Participation by race, ethnic group, religious group, etc., A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

E725.5.N3

United States—Late nineteenth century, 1865-1900—McKinley’s first administration, 1897-1901—War of 1898 (Spanish-American War)—Armies. Troops—United States Army. Corps. Brigades—Participation by race, ethnic group, etc., A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

F1035.N3

British America—Canada—Elements in the population—Negroes. Blacks

F1419.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—Latin America (General)—Elements in the population—Individual, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

F1789.N3

Latin America. Spanish America—West Indies—Greater Antilles—Cuba—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

F1896.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—West Indies—Greater Antilles—Jamaica—Elements in the population—Individual elements—Negroes. Blacks

F1983.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—West Indies—Greater Antilles—Puerto Rico. Boriquen—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

F2391.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Guiana—Guyana. British Guiana—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes

F2431.N3

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Guiana—Suriname. Netherlands or Dutch Guiana—Elements in the population—Individual elements—Negroes. Blacks

F2659.N4

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Brazil—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

F2799.N3

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Uruguay—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

N8232

Visual arts—Special subjects of art—Other special subjects (alphabetically)—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PE3102.N4-PE3102.N48

English philology and language—Linguistic geography. Dialects, etc.—English outside of the British Isles—United States (and America general)—Ethnic groups, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

PE3727.N4

English philology and language—Linguistic geography. Dialects, etc.—Slang. Argot. Vulgarisms—Special classes—Special groups of persons—Other, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PN1995.9.N4

Drama—Motion pictures—Other special topics, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks. African Americans

PN4305.N5

Oratory—Oratory. Elocution, etc.—Recitations (in English)—Special—Other special. By subject, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

PN6120.N4

Collections of general literature—Drama—Special. By subject or form, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

PN6231.N5

Collections of general literature—Wit and humor—Collections on special topics, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks

PS153.N5

American literature—History of American literature—Special classes of authors—Other classes of authors, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS173.N4

American literature—History of American literature—Treatment of special classes, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS310.N4

American literature—History of American literature—Special forms—Poetry—Special topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS338.N4

American literature—History of American literature—Special forms—Drama—Special topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS374.N4

American literature—History of American literature—Special forms—Prose—Prose fiction—Special forms and topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS508.N3

American literature—Collections of American literature—Special classes of authors, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS509.N4

American literature—Collections of American literature—Special topics (Prose and verse), A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS591.N4

American literature—Collections of American literature—Poetry—Special—Special groups of authors, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS595.N3

American literature—Collections of American literature—Poetry—Special—By subject, A-Z—Negro (African American, Black) rimes and songs

PS627.N4

American literature—Collections of American literature—Drama—Special forms and topics, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans. Blacks

PS628.N4

American literature—Collections of American literature—Drama—Special classes of authors, A-Z—Negro (African American, Black) authors

PS663.N4

American literature—Collections of American literature—Oratory—Special, A-Z—Negro. African American. Black

RA448.5.N4

Public aspects of medicine—Public health. Hygiene. Preventive medicine—By region or country—America—North America—United States—Ethnic groups, etc.—Individual, A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

RC451.5.N4

Internal medicine—Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry—Psychiatry—By ethnic group, A-Z—Negroes. Blacks. African Americans

Z1361.N39

National bibliography—America—United States—Special topics (not otherwise provided for), A-Z—Negroes. African Americans

Z1229.N39

National bibliography—America—United States—American literature—Special classes or groups of writers, A-Z—Negro. African American

Z6944.N39

Subject bibliography—Periodicals, newspapers, and other serials—Special topics, A-Z—Negro (African American, Black) newspapers

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I want to point out that LCC has made the flip in some places. There are many places that have either changed the cuttered term and provided a redirect, or perhaps were never cuttered in the Ns to begin with and so are placed in the Bs or As — it’s just a matter of changing the rest.

Examples:

(ML120.N49)
Literature on music—Bibliography—By region or country, A-Z—Negro music, United States
see ML128.B45

PS366.A35

American literature—History of American literature—Special forms—Prose—Special topics, A-Z—African Americans. Blacks
PS366.N42 Negroes see PS366.A35

F2239.B55

Latin America. Spanish America—South America—Elements in the population—Individual elements, A-Z—Blacks
F2239.N32 Negroes see F2239.B55

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Edit 2016-04-07

I updated the above two examples to show the that the SEE reference still exists in the catalog, and where it lives. While the cutter itself isn’t visible in ClassWeb’s normal view, it is viewable in the MARC record.

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I do recommend that when creating new cutters for Blacks or African Americans, they should stop adding automatic references for the same topic where it would’ve appeared as an .N4 (or thereabouts) we shouldn’t be including pejoratives as UFs or see references.