Disability in the Library of Congress Classification Scheme – Part 2

Biography is a special case of classification. There are dedicated memos about classifying biographies in the subject headings manual as well as the classification and shelflisting manual (F 275, G 320).

A reading of these instructions will show that biographies can’t be placed wherever one would like, there has to be a provision provided for it in the schedule.

Turning again to the HVs, the first such instruction encountered under ‘People with disabilities’ is at HV1552.3

Biography (Collective)
Including persons involved with rehabilitation or education of and services to people with disabilities
For individual biography, see the specific class of people with disabilities

The specific classes provided are as follows:

HV1570-1570.5
Developmentally disabled

HV1571-2349
Blind
Including works on the deaf and blind

HV2350-2990.7
Deaf. Hearing impaired
Including deaf-mutes

HV3000-3003
Terminally ill. Incurables

HV3003.2-3009.5
People with mental disabilities

HV3011-3024
People with physical disabilities

Of these six, biography provisions are given for people with blindness (and those of exceptional pupils), deafness, and terminal illnesses.

Biographies for people with mental disabilities are directed to RC569.7-574*, and biographies for people with physical disabilities are also directed to see the condition itself in the R [Medicine] class.

So to sum up: when classifying a book about someone with disabilities, depending on the disability your options are to class it as a biography under a class of people needing ‘Protection, assistance, relief’ — or to place it alongside all medical works on the same condition. As disabled activists advocate for decreasing the medicalized view, we do a disservice with these two options.

*While there is a provision at HV3006.A39.A-Z for Biography, individual, A-Z, checking LC’s catalog reveals a total of 7 books with that classification. That indicates to me that the preferred area is RC569.7-574.

Disability in the Library of Congress Classification scheme – Part 1

The impetus for this blog was that I was cataloging a book, Exile and pride by Eli Clare, and found myself quite dissatisfied with several aspects of the master record.

Leaving aside the misgendering subject headings for the moment, as that’s another post for another day, I spent some time looking at the way LC’s classification scheme treats disabilities and disabled folks.

First, a note about LC’s notion of classes of people: from the subject headings manual H 1100:

classes of persons, including age and sex groups; social, economic, and political categories of persons; types of afflicted persons; members of particular religions; employees and occupational groups; etc. Examples: Youth; Women; Fathers; Poor; Political prisoners; People with mental disabilities; Liver–Cancer–Patients; Catholics; Hare Krishnas; Fire fighters; Judges; Darts players; High technology industries–Employees.

LC treats classes of people from different perspectives: if you’re looking for works on the legal treatment of a particular class, you’ll find that in the Ks, an anthropologic treatment of that class in the Gs, a religious treatment in the Bs, etc.

The H class, being the social sciences, struck me as the natural place for a resource by a disability rights activist, and indeed I found:

Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology–Protection, assistance and relief–Special classes

HV1551-3024 People with disabilities

Notice that people with disabilities is explicitly placed under ‘Protection, assistance and relief–Special classes’, a span from HV697 to HV3024.

By placing people with disabilities here, they are co-located with other classes of people who happen to be in need of ‘Protection, assistance and relief’

for instance:

HV1442-1448 Women
HV1449 Gay men. Lesbians
HV3025-3163 Mariners

Each of these areas is designated for that class of person as someone in need not general placement of works about that class of person as a person.

A work on any of the previous three groups as classes themselves not in need of protection could be classed in a number of places, e.g.:

HQ1155 Women. Feminism—History—Modern—21st century
HQ75.25 Sexual minorities—Homosexuality. Lesbianism—General works
HD8039.S4-.S42 Labor. Work. Working class—By industry or trade, A-Z—Seamen.
Sailors. Merchant mariners

People with disabilities have no such other number, they are only classed as a special class of people in need of protection, assistance and relief.

Next: Part 2 – the biography subdivision.