Pan-American Authorities (PANA): Term Collection

Use the definition of the English term provided by its source

• For terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), our goal is to follow these definitions (when available) and refrain from relying on external sources like dictionaries, as they might deviate from the definition Library of Congress uses.

  • https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html

  • https://fast.oclc.org/searchfast/

• If you cannot find a direct definition from the provided links, then seek clues from the usage of the subject heading on the Library of Congress website.

  • For example, by searching the term "City Promotion" in LC's catalog, the resulting items may provide a better idea of the meaning of the term.

PANA Resources

1. Begin by referring to the above-mentioned resources, followed by supplementary sources such as crowdsourcing sites and popular search engines.
2. Exercise caution with crowdsourcing platforms unless they are the sole available resource.
   • “Crowdsourced web sites and services such as Wikipedia, DBpedia, Wikidata, eHow, Twitter, etc., are not generally considered to be authoritative though they can be useful sources because entries often provide references to authoritative print sources or web sites.”*
3. Hits from databases or popular search engines, like Google, are effective in assessing the popularity of a given term. Search engines, such as Google, provide insight into the prevalence of a term and its usage frequency.

   • For example (searched on 3/12/2024):

     • "Guerra Hispano-Estadounidense": 98k hits
     • "Guerra Hispano-Cubano-Norteamericana": 16.4 hits
     • "Guerra hispano-americana, 1898":  13k hits
     • "Guerra hispano-americana 1898": 15.3k hits

**Reference H 202 Authority Research pages 3-4 (“b. Where to search for authoritative information”) for further guidance.

Where are the non-preferred terms located in each resource?

• Armarc en Línea 2.0: Terms listed as "UP" or "Usado Por" are non-preferred terms

• Lemb Digit@l: The non-preferred terms are located in the 450 field.

• Librunam: The non-preferred terms are listed as "Término no aceptado".

• Biblioteca Nacional de España (abne or BNE): The non-preferred terms are listed as "Usado por":

• Catálogo Colectivo de Autoridades Bibliográficas (CCAB): The non-preferred terms are listed as "Término no usado".

• Catálogo de Autoridades de la Biblioteca Mariano Moreno, Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina: The non-preferred terms are listed as "Usado por".