The Complexity of Cataloging Tibetan ‘Music Videos’

In my Intro to Knowledge Organization class, Professor Amber Billey taught her students that cataloging was inherently political. She taught us about Sandy Berman and Hope Olson’s work; about the story that is “told” by classification. Items to be cataloged are multifaceted, and there is conscious decision-making behind the representation of each facet. Why not make the most informed decision possible? True, cataloging work often operates under a deadline. In order to make collections visible and accessible, there must first be a record, hence a reason to emphasize product over process. Yet, in order to facilitate searchability, the record has to have the correct access points. It is our obligation as information professionals to strive for the most accurate records that are within our power to provide. With the introduction of linked data, accuracy is also dependent upon ability to index: considering how one record relates to a larger grouping of metadata for similar items. A third challenge is working within the constraints of the cataloging structure itself. The interplay between the necessity of accurate representation for rare materials and current limitations of the catalog informed my summer internship at the C.V. Starr East Asian Library.

My internship began from a combination of my interest in the materials and desire for more practice with cataloging. Tibetan Studies Librarian Lauran Hartley and I designed the internship with the goals of furthering my knowledge of Tibetan cultural production and becoming more familiar with RDA and MARC formatting for audiovisual formats. The primary collection I worked with is a diverse range of Tibetan “music videos” in VCD format, a collection numbering in the hundreds. These VCDs are rare and difficult to obtain, as they must be purchased locally. The collection includes several Tibetan musical genres such as folk music, pop music, and dance music. As I do not have experience with the Tibetan language, it was important to find a way to obtain bibliographic data about the albums in question. Luckily, Lauran discovered that the Latse Library (a privately funded library in New York City) had cataloged many of the albums from its multimedia collection in AACR2 format using alternative library software. Thus, our project became the creation of original catalog records, mapping AACR2 formatted data to RDA in MARC21 format, and translating Tibetan terms to English for the sake of the catalog.

This project broaches several relatively new territories. For one, there are not many institutions creating MARC21-format records for Tibetan albums, as my supervisor and I learned while establishing the cataloging workflow. Also, Tibetan musical genres and Tibetan words for the roles of individuals involved in the creation of these albums are not yet fully established. Words like “ram dkrol ba”, meaning “backup musician” and “sgra len pa”, meaning “sound recorder”, are not yet standardized in the Tibetan vocabulary. Many of these terms were recently adapted from Chinese words. Fortunately, the Starr Library’s Tibetan bibliographic assistant, Lobsang Dondrup, has experience with filmmaking and was able to translate these words for us.

Learning both about Tibet, and about the genres that I was cataloging was instrumental in my completion of accurate records. I began compiling a list of vocabulary terms (a thesaurus) to aid in the transferal of information from Latse’s catalog to ours, a list which is still being built. Even some of the musical genre terms used by Latse in subject fields are not widely known or written about. Some of the more common genres of music I cataloged include “la gzhas” or traditional love songs, and “rdung len” (grassroots folk music played on the sgra snyan).

Describing geographic location in the subject fields proved to be challenging. Tibetan geographic subdivisions are complex, to say the least. To quote Emily Drabinski in her 2012 article “Teaching the Radical Catalog”: “language used in classification is a reflection of broader social structures. The thesaurus acts as a meta-text, a symbolic representation of values, power relations, and cultural identities in a given place in time.” One could also relate this to Ranganathan’s fifth law of library science: the library is a growing organism. Essentially, the catalog evolves to suit changing cultural/political perspectives. Ideally, according to infamous radical cataloger Sanford Berman, the catalog should accommodate all perspectives, should “manage to encompass all the facets of what has been printed and subsequently collected in libraries to the satisfaction of the worldwide reading community”. Historically speaking, however, LC thesauri have been problematic. Drabinski cites the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as an example of the shortcomings of LC, that the only subject heading available is “Arab-Israeli Conflict”, which negates the reality of Israeli attacks on Palestine. She references Sandy Berman in her assertion that “Library classifications use the hegemonic language of the powerful: they reflect, produce, and reproduce hierarchies…” Working within the LC system means that we are bound to adhere to its hegemonic, hierarchical structure.

In regards to LC’s reflection of the situation between Tibet and China, there wasn’t an established subject heading for Tibetan diaspora (which has been occurring since 1959) until 2014. There is still no subject heading for Sino-Tibetan conflict, perhaps due to the complexity of adhering to current jurisdiction when establishing headings. Another consideration regarding geographic location for these records is that half of the Tibetan population in China lives outside of what is known as “Tibet Autonomous Region.” Many of the materials I worked with were produced outside the area often referred to as ‘Tibet’ and contain visual and lyrical content from Tibetan-populated areas in Qinghai and Gansu provinces, for example. When cataloging items such as these, one must be creative and understand the rules in order to establish reliable classification.

With this knowledge in tow, I wasn’t sure how geographic subject headings would be approached, given what I know about the Chinese occupation of Tibet since the 1950s. To simplify my question, if I am to follow the principle of current jurisdiction and include China as a geographic subdivision in the 650 subject field, is it implied that we are categorizing Tibetan folk music as being “Chinese” because Tibet is claimed as part of China? Or are we just reflecting that this is Tibetan music from the area said to be part of China? In any case, we are obligated to conform to what the catalog structure itself will allow, and as Prof. Drabinski stated, the catalog reflects the power relations in a given place and time. (I learned that my supervisor has labored extensively petitioning LC to change some policies for cataloging in Tibetan). For the records we have created, the subjects in the 650 field most often read with the genre of the song (folk songs, love songs), followed by a geographic subdivision for China, and an additional geographic subdivision for the specific Tibetan area in question. Chinese occupied Tibet has been known as ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’ since the 1950s. There is an established subject heading for this region (which means the Library of Congress honors this title), and we used it whenever applicable. When possible, we included specific regions of Tibet such as Amdo (A-mdo) and Khams. When relevant, we also included a subject heading for Tibetans — Ethnic identity — Songs and music to reflect the music’s theme of Tibetan nationalism. We are bound to adhere to the Library of Congress’ vocabularies, which are a reflection of current international law. Despite complication, the fact that we are able to preserve records for these items is a step in the right direction.

There is risk involved in the production of Tibetan music: Tibetan singers face the threat of prison sentences should their lyrical content be perceived to be “separatist” or “anti-state”. It is important to honor their risk with accurate catalog representation. As quoted, cataloging is an inherently political act. The goal is to preserve the important cultural expressions which these brave individuals fight to produce against significant resistance. By creating records for Tibetan music VCDs and housing these materials to be made available to researchers, we are helping give visibility to the resilience of the Tibetan experience.

© Laura Haynes
MSLIS Candidate, Pratt Institute

For more information about censorship of Tibetan music, and music in the fabric of Tibetan national identity see:
http://freemuse.org/archives/7993

Tibet in Song, a “Music film about cultural exploitation and resistance”
http://freemuse.org/archives/1643

“Getting heard in Tibet: Music, media and markets” by Anna Morcom

For more information about radical cataloging see:
Teaching the Radical Catalog (Drabinski)
http://www.emilydrabinski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/drabinski_radcat.pdf