Rationale –  The development of LCDGT is necessitated by two circumstances: the genre/form project and the growing popularity of faceted displays and searching The genre/form project formed the original impetus for creating a demographic terms vocabulary. Some LC subject headings—most notably the form headings for literature—include demographic information (e.g., Children’s stories, American, in which stories is the form, children are the audience demographic, and American, the creator demographic). The use of LCSH form headings for works of literature will be phased out as LC genre/form terms for literature are implemented, necessitating another method for bringing out the audience and creator/contributor information. (LCSH form headings will still be assigned to works about literature. New discovery interfaces also make a new vocabulary desirable. Subject headings such as Children’s stories, American are assigned to works about American children’s stories, and also to works that are American children’s stories, so the computer cannot distinguish between the two types of works. LCGFT began to ameliorate this situation by allowing for a genre/form search, separate from a subject search. Users often want to know, though, what works a library has by a particular group (e.g., novels by lawyers), or for a particular group (e.g., handbooks for nurses). The demographic term vocabulary will fill the latter need. Together, LCSH, LCGFT, LCMPT, and LCDGT will allow for much more precision and flexibility in searching because terms within and across vocabularies can be mixed and matched to attain the level of specificity required.

Pilot – The intent of the pilot is to test the principles guiding the development of LCDGT, to provide consistent patterns for future development, and to generate discussion within the library community. There is no attempt at comprehensiveness within the pilot vocabulary. Terms that highlight specific areas of concern (e.g., conflict situations; hierarchies) are included in order to provide examples and to form the basis for future development As with all proposals, once the terms are approved they may be used in cataloging records. PSD recommends that libraries wait until the second phase of development is completed before widely implementing LCDGT in cataloging, however; the vocabulary is not yet robust enough to support general use. The Library of Congress itself will not be implementing the terms immediately. Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms: Introduction and Guiding Principles for the Pilot provides details about the scope of the pilot vocabulary, and also explains the guiding principles under which the proposals for terms were developed. Tentative List 1517 contains approximately 380 demographic term proposals, which will be approved on June 15, 2015. PSD welcomes comments on the guiding principles and on the terms themselves through June 5, 2015. Comments may be sent to Janis L. Young at [email protected].”