Talking about Rare Books: exploring CVRMC as a learning tool

Trying to befriend a controlled vocabulary

Have you ever come across a term in a controlled vocabulary, and immediately wished you'd known it four months ago for a particular book you were working on? That's me all the time!

I don't think it's possible to ever comprehensively know all of the controlled vocabularies you're working with. However, it helps a lot to at least have an idea of what your options are.

An exercise that I've found incredibly helpful in getting to know the Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Catalogers (CVRMC) is to choose one of the top hierarchical terms, and then just straight up type it out. This charged up my cataloguing in a couple of ways:

1. It gives me a holistic visual sense of the size and scope of the vocabulary ;
2. There is a slim chance that my brain will remember at least some of the terms ;
3. It's a great way to learn new terms and familiarise yourself with what people in the field call things.

In case you're curious as to what this looks like, here's an example.

Case study: Index of CVRMC\Work\<Content of work>

https://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/rbmscv.html, 13 June 2024

<Geographic works>

• Atlases (Geographic)
• Gazetteers
• Maps
• Maritime journals
• Pilot guides
• Roadbooks

<Humorous works>

• Burlesques
• Caricatures
• Cartoons
• Comedies
• Comic histories
• Epigrams
• Fabliaux
• Facetiae
• Jestbooks
• Limericks
• Nonsense verse
• Parodies
• Pastiches
• Satires

<Reception of work>

• Censored works
  • Banned works
  • Condemned works
  • Expurgated editions

<Religious works>

• Baptismal records
• Bible stories
• Catechisms
• Christening books
• Concordats
• Conversion narratives
• Devotional literature
• Gospel books
• Hymns
• Indulgences
• Jesuit relations
• Litanies
• Miracle narratives
• Religious plays
• Sermons
• Service books
• Thumb bibles

Doomsday literature

• Apocalyptic sermons (NT)

Erotica

• Tijuana bibles

Historical works

• Annals
• Biographies
• Chronicles
• Comic histories
• Family histories
• Jesuit relations
• Local histories
• Military histories
• Oral histories

Illustrated works

• Armorials
• Blow books
• Brand books
• Comic books

Leaf books

(Use for a book containing an account of an earlier printed book or manuscript and including an original leaf or leaves from it.)

Legal works

• Bills
• Concordats
• Constitutions
• Laws
• Legal formularies
• Legal instruments
• Legislative proceedings
• Memorials (Legal)
• Official gazettes
• Orders in council
• Parliamentary petitions
• Petitions
  • Legal petitions
  • Parliamentary petitions
  • Royal petitions
• Proclamations
  • Fast day proclamations
  • Thanksgiving day proclamations
• Regulations
  • Administrative regulations
  • Military regulations
• Session laws
• Treaties  
• Trial proceedings

Musical works

• Antiphonaries
• Ballads
• Carol books
• Chants
• Choir books
• Graduals
• Hymnals
• Librettos
• Operas
• Operettas
• Part books
• Parts (Music)
• Scores
• Song sheets
• Songs
• Songsters

Political works

• Campaign literature
• Fascist works
• Mazarinades
• Nazi works

Prejudicial works

See separately: Index of CVRMC\Work\<Content of work>\Prejudicial Materials

Protest works

• Student protest works

Scientific works

• Atlases (Scientific)
• Celestial atlases
• Ephemerides
• Herbals
• Laboratory notes
• Medical formularies
• Pharmacopoeias
• Scientific recreations
• Technical formularis
  • Field notes (RT)

Travel literature

• Exploration literature
• Jesuit relations
• Maritime journals
• Overland journals

Underground publications

• Resistance publications
• Samizdat

Visual works

• Alphabet books
• Caricatures
• Cartoons
• Catchpenny prints
• Coloring books
• Comic books
• Cries
• Cruise books
• Dance of death
• Drawing books
• Emblem books
• Flip books
• Livres d'artistes
• Metamorphic pictures
• Painted books
• Pattern books
• Stories without words
• Toy books
• Type specimens
• Viewbooks