Metadata for the collection

My collection has a simple, straightforward format: digital images. The LCSH for my collection could be: photography, photographs, or photography of families. Since the LCSH (photography of families for whole collection) cannot resolve my collection, I replace the LCSH with Alternate location Subject Headings so that my collection can be browsed or retrieved by locations.

In order to assign a call number for my collection, first I browsed our innovative system, millennium with subject heading, photography, and it brought up a huge of TR collections. Then I looked up the Gale’s Library of Congress Classification Schedules to figure out what specific TR number I should use, and I picked TR650 underneath applied photography--> collections -->general works. I had a discussion with my colleague, Marcia, about my call assignment this morning, and she disagreed with me. She argued that TR is for photography techniques. I was back to the schedule again, and it seemed she was right. She suggested me look N schedule, and I did. Following results is from the N:

1.Call #: N7640 (visual arts-->special subjects of art-->Humans in art. Human life cycle in art-->children) (subject: children in art)

2.Call#: N7433.8 (Miscellaneous genres and media, not limited by time period, style, place, or subject matter-->computer art, digital art-->general works). (Subjects are: Digital art, or Human figure in art.)

But after checking back to our library system for the subject heading underneath both call number, I got: children in art, Digital art, or Human figure in art. But None of them is related to the photography. So I doubted the results. I consulted my another colleague, James, with my concern, who has cataloged photography materials for 20 years. He agreed on my first choice and suggested the call number TR681.F28, which is more specific to fit for my collection: applied photography-->artistic photography -->photography of families. Marcia did not agree with James, so she went to CCP to check the physical collections to see who is right. It turns out that James is right. I learned from this assignment that most of Classification schedule TR are designed for photography techniques, but from TR640 to TR688, they are assigned for the photography collections.

To keep the consistency of the metadata, we always check our system to see what metadata have been used for the similar subject collections, if there are not error detected for the previous metadata, we should follow that metadata to create new one for the new collections.