Knowledge Organization Reflection #4: Aboutness Statements
13 March 2024
Using a material of your choice, use the lecture and pages 439-442 from Joudrey and Taylor to construct an “aboutness statement.” Provide a link (from Amazon or the like) to your resource so your peers know what you are describing, and leave feedback for one another as to whether the “aboutness” seems to have been captured appropriately.
Wilson, J. (2024). Sins of Empire Amazon listing [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.
For this first go at constructing an aboutness statement, I tried summarizing Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan, a SFF novel in a burgeoning subgenre called flintlock fantasy.
This resource is a fiction novel set in a fantasy world resembling the colonial frontiers of early modern Europe and America. It is the first in a sequel series to the author’s first trilogy set in the same world. Notable aspects include soldiers who gain enhanced abilities from inhaling gunpowder, sorcerers who use blood as conduits for their magic, and other forms of sorcery. In this book, a veteran mercenary captain, an imprisoned war hero, and a government spy are gradually swept into a sequence of mysterious events culminating in a climactic insurrection within the capital city.
Joudrey & Taylor's (2017) chapter on subject analysis details a number of the considerations and challenges surrounding the practice, and yet the majority if not entirety of its text is entirely focused on nonfiction books, physical objects, and other strictly "informational" resources. Which seems like a glaring omission to me—most of the challenges listed are still applicable to describing fictional works, along with the unique challenges that come with describing works that aren't necessarily meant to have a tangibly defined purpose or meaning. Should the analysis stick only to surface level elements like the cast and inciting incidents and tropes; or, if the librarian has read the book in question, should they try and convey their understanding of the book's themes? I personally would love if the latter approach were taken whenever possible, but time prohibitions notwithstanding, not every piece of fiction is necessarily concerned with delving into what thematic complexities their narrative might present, which might force catalogers to only describe surface elements to maintain consistency.
References
Joudrey, D. N., & Taylor, A. G. (2017). The organization of information (4th Edition). Libraries Unlimited.
Wilson, J. (2024). Sins of Empire Amazon listing [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.