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Cataloging Pierre Bourdieu S Books
Cataloging Pierre Bourdieu S Books
To cite this article: Rubén U. Alvarado MS, MLS (1994) Cataloging Pierre Bourdieu's Books,
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 19:1, 89-105, DOI: 10.1300/J104v19n01_07
Article views: 15
more specific. Also the authors found that many of these sugges-
tions resembled key terms, and 28.2% contained terms that were
useful to the cataloguer.
The evidence presented above have led some librarians to criticize
the LC subject headings practices, and as Holley and Killheffes
state: "The first cause of dissatisfaction lies with the terminology
itself. Many headings do not reflect current American terminoiogy,
but the Library of Congress has been slow to make changes because
of the large number of records which would need correction." In
spite of the fact that many libraries provide cross-references to
direct users to find what they want or need, the dissatisfaction still
persists. The researchers also pointed out that "LC assigns subject
headings in such a way that valuable information within many items
is lost. The first complaint is that 1.7 subject headings per item is
not sufficient, especially in contrast to the wealth of subject access
points that are lost because the specific subject headings for the
smaller sections are replaced by a general subject heading which
covers the whole work." Furthermore, the problems of specificity
and precision come into play when terminology is discussed. For
example, Holley and ~ i l l h e f f e saffirm that "the Library of Con-
gress is less specific than many would like when it comes to
establishing new terminology. LCSH is conservative by nature since
it reflects LC's cataloging mostly of monographs; but new ter-
minology may be well-established in journal articles, the news
media, and other sources before full-length books are written.
Furthermore, the new material may be collected under the already-
established, older, less-exact subject heading while LC catalogers
wait to see whether enough material will be published to justify a
new heading."
Some authors suggest replacing the LCSH system by PRECIS as
a way to guarantee and solve the subject access problem without a
drastic revision of the LCSH policy. Henige6, for example, pointed
out that "in recent years either the Library of Congress (LC) classi-
fication scheme or its accessing apparatus, the Library of Congress
Subject Headings (LCSH), have [hardly] escaped criticism, much
of it quite scathing and most of it justified." Apparently the criti-
cisms have been centered on its Euro-centric cast as well as on the
nature, organization, and terminology of subject headings. The au-
92 CATALOGING & CLASSIFlCATION QUARTERLY
THEORETICAL MODEL
The principal objective of this study is to evaluate the adequacy
of the subject headings assigned to the books of a single author,
Pierre Bourdieu, and in fact, assessing the adequacy of LCSH itself
in this area. By taking as a basic variable of study the relation
between subject cataloging and adequateness, it is possible to for-
94 CATALOGING & CLASSIFICATION QUARTERLY
FINDINGS
Currently, Bourdieu's studies o n French higher education are
receiving much attention from the area of sociology of education.
96 CATALOGING & CLASSIFICATION QUARTERLY
Algerie 60 [i.e.soixante] 1 2 - - - 3
Un art moyen 2 2 - 2 - 6
CAmour de l'arl 4 3 - - - 7
Ce que parler veu dire 1 2 - - - 3
Choses dites 1 2 1 - - 3
Les etudianb et leurs etudes I - - - - 1
Esquisse dune theorie de la pratlque 1 2 - 1 - 4
Le deracinement 2 - 1 - - 3
La distinction 1 4 - 1 - 6
Les heritiers 4 1 2 - - 7
Homo academicus 1 3 - - - 4
Lewn sur la lewn/Lewn inaugurale 2 - - - - 2
Le metier de waologue 4 1 1 - - 6
La noblesse d'etat I - - - - 1
COntologie politique de M. Heidegger 1 2 1 1 - 5
Questions de sociologie 3 - 1 - - 4
La reproduction 4 3 - - - 7
Rapport pedagogiqueet wmmunication I - - - - 1
Sociologie de I'Argelie 7 1 - - - 8
Le sens pratique 2 2 - - - 4
Two Bourdieu texts - 2 - - - 2
A economia das trocas simbolicas - - - 1
---------------------.-*----.--------------*----
1
TOTAL 44 32 6 5 1 88
F - French
E=
S
G=
- English
Spanish
Gennan
P= Portuguese
Categories Specifications
Algerie 60 [i.e.soixante] - D -
Un art moyen - - I
L'Amour de I'art - - I
Ce que parler veu dire - D -
Choses dites - - I
Les etudiants e l leurs etudes - - I
Esquisse d'une theorie de la pratique - - I
Le deraunement - - I
La dishnction - - I
Les heritiers - - I
Homo academicus - - I
Lecon 6ur la lecon/Lewn inaugurale - - I
Le metier de sociologue A - -
La noblesse d'erat - - I
COntologie politique de M. Heidegger - D -
Queslions de sociologie - - I
La reproduction - D -
Rapport psdagogiqueet communication - - I
Sociologie de I'Argelie - D -
Le sens pratique - - I
Two Bourdieu texts - - I
A economia das vocas simbolicas - - I
-
A= Adequate
D Defident
I -Inadequate
ETHNOPHILOSOPHY
PRACTICE (PHILOSOPHY)
PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
KINSHIP
PHILOSOPHY, PRIMITIVE
Two pamphlets were also located with different titles: Two Bour-
dieu texts and Translations of Pierre Bourdieu on the culture field
and the economicfield. However, both of them are the same text
and refer to the translations of Symbolic power and Qualifcations
and jobs. Symbolic power summarizes some of Bourdieu's "debts
to various strands in the social science traditions, and, through these
placing and critiques, sketches the foundations of [his] own sociolo-
g y . . . [and that] somewhat scholastic diagram is designed to give a
synoptic view of the sum of the achievements of social science
which have to be integrated and (superseded) in order to produce an
adequate theory of symbolic power."17 Symbolic systems as struc-
turing structures, as structured structures, and as instruments of
domination are reviewed to produce what Bourdieu calls symbolic
power. The second text, "Qualifcations and jobs" written in col-
laboration with Luc Boltanski, presents the orientation of research
in progress at the Centre Europeenne des sociologie. "It offers for
discussion, in a rapid, provisional form, the hypotheses underpin-
ning a number of research projects now in progress. Hence its
sometimes somewhat elliptical formulation^."^^ This text presents
a sketch of concepts such as habitus, cultural capital and the relative
autonomy of the field of specialized production. Two records were
found for these identical texts, yet there were no coincidences in the
subject headings assigned to them. Furthermore, they did not reflect
the subject of the booklets. Symbolic power, habitus, cultural capi-
tal, and field, common conceptual terms in sociology, are not valid
LCSHs. The subject headings found were:
Rubbl Urbizagdstegui Alvarado
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
SEMIOTICS
SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY-PHILOSOPHY
LABOR MARKET
Similarly, two identical booklets published with different titles
were found: L e ~ o nsur la L e ~ o nand L e ~ o ninaugurale. Originally
both of them were an inaugural lecture given by Bourdieu as an
introduction to the course of Sociology on April 23, 1982 at the
College de France. That same year they were published as Lecon
inaugurale and as Lefon sur la lefon. The text is an account of the
"inaugural class" as an institution; hence, its title. Bourdieu states
that as a rite of admission the inaugural class realizes, in a symbolic
way, an act of delegation at the end of which the new master is
authorized to speak with authority, and thus an act that institutes his
word as a legitimate discourse, pronounced by whomever has the
right to do it. The magic efficacy of the rite rests in the silent and
invisible exchange between the newcomers and the scientists there
reunited. The text is an effort to demystify this institution, and
Bourdieu takes the opportunity to ironize it by affirming that all the
prepositions that are enunciated by the science should be applied to
the subject who makes the science, Using as an excuse the inaugural
class, he speaks on the sociology of sociology, cultural capital,
scientific revolution, racism in science, habitus, field, etc.-i.e., so-
ciology of science. No book reviews have been produced for this
book, and only two records were found in OCLC, neither of them
with coincidences in subject headings. SOCIOLOGY and SO-
CIOLOGY-PHILOSOPHY were used as subject headings respec-
tively.
DISCUSSION
Several points are crucial to this research. One of them deals with
the question of Educational sociology vs. Socioiogy of education.
Five of Bourdieu's books are specifically dedicated to Sociology of
education, but LCSH cross references them with Educational so-
ciology. However, these are two different concepts. Educational
102 CATALOGING & CLASSIFICATION QUARTERLY
CONCLUSION
The subject cataloging process of Pierre Bourdieu's books was
found to be inadequate. This inadequateness was expressed as a
104 CATALOGING & CLASSIFICATION QUARTERLY
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