Jessamyn has a funny post on the addition of “Strap-on Sex” to the official Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) authorities file.* Apparently she has Sandy Berman’s “Dildoes” LCSH application on her refrigerator.

The record itself is at right. I particularly like the third citation, “Google search, August 30.” Apparently the cataloger searched for and then found the term “strap-on dildo sex” in Google. Who would have thunk it?

Then there’s the related term “pegging.” It was new to me (it was invented in 2001). I turned to LibraryThing which is so often ahead of the curve on slang. For example, LibraryThing is hip to that whole “cooking” thing, where LCSH still calls it “cookery.” But alas, no pegging books yet.

Our strap-ons tag isn’t very detailed either, with only two books. (BDSM, by contrast, has been used 2577 times.)

My library talks (eg., at the LC, hit “launch in a new window”) focus on how LibraryThing’s tags can work better than LCSH for just this sort of thing. But not here—LCSH has us beat, I admit. I’ll just have to take it, um, like a man.

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*No direct link. You can search for it here.

Labels: safe for work if you're a cataloger