Cataloging help?

[rivkat]

OK, so do/how do you all separate fiction from comics?  My system is breaking down.  (We use Library of Congress for nonfiction, but that's terrible for fiction.)  I have a rough system of "nonsequential comics like Gorey or xkcd shelved with fiction, sequential shelved as comics."  But it's only rough and I'm not really sure I want Maus shelved alphabetically by title with the comics instead of alphabetically by author name with the fiction.

Any suggestions?  (To make matters worse, I shelve tie-in novels and scripts alphabetically by series title in with the fiction, except for screenplays by Robert Bolt.)  A pure mix is unlikely because of shelf height issues; I think it makes sense to have the noncollected comics, issue by floppy issue, segregated from regular fiction, though I could probably be argued into a change.

Comments

[ratcreature]

I looked up their classification on their website, and going by the outline of the first levels there, and now my impression is that it is more by language someone writes in than by countries as political entities. Kafka for example is in "PT2621 .A26" which is in German Literature 1860/70-1960, so no Autria-Hungary relevance for sorting. German writing Swiss authors are put with German literature as well. So it seems that separation on the top levels for political reasons they only really do for "American" literature to separate it out from "English" (presumably because it is the US library of congress and find it really important that they aren't in a colony anymore and totally different from their former overlords), but Welsh, Scottish and Irish are only put elsewhere if they write Gaelic. Hence James Joyce is under "English literature" and modern Irish authors like John McGahern are there too. V.S. Naipaul otoh is put under the broad "English literature: Provincial, local, etc." subclass, which I guess isn't wrong as such, but you could have put all English-writing American authors into that one as well, if you use that as catch-all for former colonies. Meanwhile Kiran Desai for example who was born in India and writes in English is put into the US literature, presumably because she lives in the US?

[amalthia]

Meanwhile Kiran Desai for example who was born in India and writes in English is put into the US literature, presumably because she lives in the US?

Maybe, it has to do with the subject of the book to some extent like if the characters are in the U.S. it would go under U.S. literature?

There is a lot about LC that is still a mystery to me. I don't catalog enough literature to be able to answer all these questions well. Normally if I hit something different I end up researching and seeing how other books were classed.

I will say this much about cataloging there is a lot of material to learn and it seems like it'll take years to master it. At this point I think non-fiction is easier to catalog because it's by subject.