It Takes a Village: Developing Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms

Abstract

The Library of Congress (LC) is in the process of developing a separate thesaurus of genre/form terms, which describe what a work or expression is, rather than what it is about. From the beginning, LC policy specialists realized that to accomplish this undertaking, it would be both necessary and desirable to collaborate with the library community. This article examines and evaluates the various methods of collaboration used by LC in the creation of the genre/form thesaurus.