Tweaking Our Terminology
September 2007
This September issue brings both the new volume year and some modest changes to the magazine—changes that are subtle, tweaks really, and thus beg pointing out in this column. The first of these has to do with our Interdisciplinary Index and the cross-disciplinary terms (CDIs, as we call them in-house) we use to identify resources that span academic fields. Although we had been applying CDIs to reviews internally since 1988—to facilitate later publication of special-interest volumes—the December 1995 issue was the first to include what was then called the Topical Index. This index has appeared at the back of every issue since, and it is searchable in our electronic edition, Choice Reviews Online.
That December 1995 issue had eight CDIs: African & African American Studies, Asian & Asian American Studies, Environmental Studies, Latino Studies (later Latino/a Studies), Food & Agriculture, Native American Studies, Urban Studies, and Women’s Studies. In subsequent years we added Classical Studies, Gay & Lesbian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and the anomalous (because it tags a format rather than an area of study) Electronic Resources. With this new volume year we are adding three more and modifying three existing CDIs that, we came to realize, were not sufficiently inclusive.
The new CDIs are Canadian Studies, Islamic Studies, and Law & Society. We instituted these because, in recent years, they have been important areas of study for reasons geographical, political, or social. These additions to our Interdisciplinary Index will permit easy access to reviews of materials that will be useful to those working in these areas.
The modification of existing CDIs almost always entails spirited debate in editorial meetings, as we toss around the reasons to (or not to) tweak existing CDIs. Often the reason is a developing cultural awareness since we instituted the original CDI, and such is the case with Gay & Lesbian Studies, which with this issue becomes Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies. In a similar vein, Women’s Studies has become Women’s & Gender Studies, reflecting the recent evolution of a literature extending out from women’s studies to embrace men’s studies and gender issues in general. (That we did not abandon Women’s Studies altogether in favor of “Gender Studies” is a discussion for another tweaking.) The last transmutation is from Latino/a Studies to Latin American & Latino/a Studies, a change we made to be consistent with two existing categories that embrace both North American populations and their offshore wellsprings (African & African American Studies and Asian & Asian American Studies).
The only other change with this issue is the relabeling of a section of the taxonomy: Sports & Physical Education has morphed into Sports & Recreation. This correction is too long in coming because the Library of Congress classification that embraces sports, GV, is, in fact, “Recreation. Leisure.” Accordingly it goes beyond sports and physical training to embrace, for example, games, mountaineering, camping, and so on. Thus tweaked, this section heading gives resources on these subjects a comfortable place to tuck in.
As always, our e-door is open for those wishing to comment on these changes or on any other matter related to scholarly publishing in general, or Choice in particular.—Rebecca Ann Bartlett
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