"Wizard rock music" LC Subject Heading!!

Finally, after months of planning, retooling our submission and waiting, Annette Anderson-Ma and I found out that our "Wizard rock music" subject heading was approved by the Library of Congress! Yay! This project has been a long time in the making.

When Annette and I went to our first Wizard Rock concert in 2006, we had an awesome time! It was a Harry and the Potters/Draco and the Malfoys show. Afterward we started wondering if there was an LC Subject Heading for Wizard Rock. We're librarians, we wonder about things like that. Especially cataloging librarians like Annette. We did some investigating and realized that there was no LCSH for Wizard Rock. Until now, Wizard Rock cds were assigned subject headings like "Rock music" and "Potter, Harry (ficitious character) -- Songs and music". We really felt that Wizard Rock deserved it's own subject heading. So, finally after some more investigation we figured out how the submission process worked and who to contact.

We also aquired a copy of the Wizard Rockumentary (you should check it out! It's cool!) for the library and cataloging that film was actually tied in to our submission process. Basically, librarians can submit subject heading ideas through SACO if they are cataloging something and don't find an appropriate subject heading in the existing list. Although the Wizard Rockumentary already had an OCLC record, we could still submit the subject heading. We felt that to properly catalog this item, it really needed a subject heading for what it was! Wizard Rock!

As part of the submission process we also had to provide evidence for where the subject term was found and where it was not found. You have to show that it is terminology that is in fact used, but also it is something new that needs to be added to LC Subject Headings.

Only libraries who participate in SACO can submit a subject heading, and our library is not a participating institution. Sylvia Mariscal, a cataloger from UCLA is the SACO representative who helped us. She gave us a lot of guidance and helped us to provide the correct information and format everything properly.

So, if you want to see the official approved list for March 18, 2009, you can go to the lists here.

Or, you can check out the LC Subject Authorities page and search for "Wizard rock music".

I feel really fortunate to have such an awesome friend, colleague and fellow Wizard Rock Librarian in Annette. It was a lot of fun working on this project with her! And the fact that the subject heading was approved makes it a million times sweeter! New I feel that I am a REAL Wizard Rock Librarian!!