Take some time to explore the Library of Congress authority files, particularly its “Help on Searching Authorities“. Search the authority file for the subject, name and title authority headings for your favourite topic, author and book. Are they included in the authority files? If you haven’t been able to find them, do you have any thoughts about why they are not there?
I typed in one of my favourite historical figures, Agrippina the Younger. As you can see I got an overwhelming number of results, most of which were not relevant to my search due to the fact that so many ancient Romans shared the same name:
When I clicked the first option it showed me a cross-reference for Agrippina, Minor:
Most users wouldn’t search for this particular Agrippina using these terms but it was interesting to see that it was still listed as a possible access point for the users who might.
Once I found the correct Agrippina, I was intrigued by the number of headings that Library of Congress had created in anticipation of user searches, including her historical roles, her fictional representation, and resources in different languages:
When I clicked on the MARC record I was completely overwhelmed by the layout and what all the numbers could mean. The labelled display option was a little easier to read, but it just goes to show how this is really like learning a whole new language!
Interestingly, one of the texts I read while studying and teaching Agrippina the Younger – Anthony Barrett’s Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire (1996) – had the subject headings
- Agrippina, Minor, 15-59
- Empresses — Rome — Biography
- Rome — History — Julio-Claudians, 30 B.C.-68 A.D.
which, as stated above, would limit the number of people recalling this resource since most would now use the search terms Agrippina the Younger when searching for resources on this topic. This reinforces Hider’s point that metadata doesn’t always support user needs (2018, p.101).