Genre Heading Assignment

GENRE HEADING ASSIGNMENT

J. McRee (Mac) Elrod

3 August 2011

A genre heading is one which describes what an item *is* as opposed to what it is *about*, e.g., "Feature films", "Electronic books", or "Equipment" assigned to a feature film. an electronic book, or an item of equipment.

In music, the plural form is usually genre, e.g., "Symphonies", while the singular is the topical heading, e.g., "Symphony". Some music cataloguers are continuing to code music genre in 650 until established in LCGFT.

There is no one thesaurus to use for genre terms. Most frequently used are Library of Congress genre form terms (LCGFT), Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH), and local headings. Other lists include one for archival and rare materials.

GSAFD, in many older records particularly for fiction, will be less used with the advent of LCGFT:

The same 2nd indicators apply in 655 and in other 6XX.

655 7 $aFeature films.$2lcgft
655 0 $aElectronic books.
655 7 $aAdventure fiction.$2gsafd
655 4 $aEquipment. or 655 7 $aEquipment.$2local

LCSH are established in Library of Congress Authorities as 150;
LCGFT are established as 155.