Thoughts on our in-house Music Classification System

The county-level public library system that employs me utilizes a "home grown" classification system when it comes to categorizing music.  It's very rudimentary and simple...almost too simple.  We've had some vehement patron reaction to the way we don't distinguish between traditional "Blues" music (that we code with the three-letter designation BLU) and more contemporary music commonly called "R&B" or Rhythm & Blues, which, though derived from classical Blues, is indeed its own genre of music.  However, in our library system, it gets shoved under the BLU designation.  This has always rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning of my tenure there, and evidently some of our patrons feel the same, recently (in the past several months) commiting acts of 'helpful' vandalism, scratching out the BLU code and writing in by hand with permanent pen, "R&B", up to and including not only the front label on the insert but also the rear label, which takes some knowledge and effort to open and get to without damaging the jewel case.

This would give a thoughtful cataloger pause to consider perhaps overhauling the classification scheme going forward...maybe not to retroactively reclassify CDs, but at least all new purchases going forward falling under the new schemes.  Not my former boss, however.  She was determined to stick to the established scheme and not budge.

Also, our "home-grown" system distinguishes between Religious music, coded REL, and Christian Religious Music, or CREL.  I noted with interest that a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was coded "REL" and *not* "CREL".  Such things are always up to cataloger judgement, of course...but the choice is revealing of a Protestant bias.  As an atheist, I would have no trouble according the Mormon Tabernacle Choir the "CREL" designator.  On the other hand, as an atheist, I would probably abolish the "CREL" designator entirely and just collapse everything under "REL".  I wondered to myself why this wasn't done from the get go, as it would be much simpler.  Then I remembered how conservative and predominantly Christian this area is and how no doubt Christian patrons and especially parents might complain if their little ones went looking for wholesome Christian music and had to wade through music of "heathen" religions and give them funny ideas that could lead to heresy, hellfire and perdition.  Or something.  Anyway, it dawned on me it was probably a conscious decision made early on, in order to head off precisely that kind of complaint.

One amusing aspect to this, however, is the inconsistency of Christian performers who merit the CREL designator while others only get REL.  Mainline Christianity is well represented in both designations, while Mormonism is specifically excluded from the CREL group.

There are some downright howlers in the system, too...the first breakout album by Bruce Hornsby & The Range is classified as "CTY" (Country music)...when it hilariously isn't; it's POP, after all.  This was one LAZY cataloger who looked at the group's name and just assumed it was Country instead of listening to a few sample tracks.

By the way, very Apropos of this discussion, there was a very interesting discussion of music genres recently on the Geologic Podcast by George Hrab in one of his latest episodes, in response to a fan mail question.

See the show notes here:
http://geologicpodcast.com/webpage/the-geologic-podcast-episode-276

Enjoy!  I love George Hrab & his work.