Minoritization vs. Universalization: Lesbianism and Male Homosexuality in LCSH and LCC.

In 1990 Ellen Greenblatt published a study of gay- and lesbian-related terms in the Library of Congress Subject Headings. No such study has been published since, nor has such a study been conducted on the Library of Congress Classification system. This article returns to Greenblatt's LCSH study to see what progress has been made in the last two decades, then uses her study as a template to examine gay- and lesbian-related terminology in LCC. Greenblatt's objections to then-current headings are examples of a tension defined in the research of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and later Grant Campbell: between a "universalizing view," which values unmarked representation of all parts of the population as a whole, and a "minoritizing view" like Greenblatt's, which values visibility for the minority "at any cost." Catalogers and classificationists should be aware of this tension and respectful of current preferred usage of the minority group being represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]