Theology Cataloging Bulletin
Vol. 23, No. 1 • November 2014 3-1 Section 3

Section Three: News and Views of the Members of the 
ATLA Technical Services Section

Edited by Leslie Engelson

THESAURUS OF RELIGIOUS OCCUPATIONS

The Best Practices Task Force released the second draft of the Thesaurus of Religious Occupations for comments. The purpose 
of this thesaurus is to provide a list of standardized vocabulary for relevant occupations which can be used to populate 
MARC field 374 Occupation in personal name authority records.  The current source for standard terms, Library of Congress 
Subject Headings, does not contain sufficient terms specific to the field of religion. Once the Thesaurus is published as a new 
standard, the abbreviation of the standard can then be used in subfield 2 Source of term.  

The principles used to guide the construction of the Thesaurus are:
1.  Only include religious occupations which might be necessary for writers.
2.  Combine occupations into broad categories which can be paired with the 372, 373 and 375 fields to bring specificity.
3.  Use LCSH terms where available.
4.  Avoid use of gender specific terms where possible. Pair with 375 to provide gender specific terms.
5.  Avoid use of denomination specific terms, again pairing searches with the 372 and 373 to provide denominational 

specific results.
6.  Include titles such as Reverend as see references only when they have been or are likely to be used, incorrectly, as 

occupations.
7.  Use plural terms to be consistent with LCSH.

The draft is accessible from the ATLA website under the Community tab. To access the draft, after signing in, click on 
SharePoint for Members > Groups/Benefits. Links to the NACO Funnel Participants and Technical Services pages are on 
the right side of the page. Click on either link then click on Shared Documents in the column on the left side of the page. 
The document is called Draft of Religion thesaurus. Alternatively, contact Judy Knop (jknop@atla.com) for access to the 
document or to make comments or suggest additional terms.

Submitted by
Judy Knop
Chair of the Best Practices in the Field of Religion Taskforce

CHANGING HOLY SPIRIT FROM A TOPICAL TERM TO A PERSONAL NAME

A proposal was made to create a name authority record and cancel the subject authority record for Holy Spirit in accordance 
with the definition of person in RDA 9.0 which includes fictional and non-human persons.  Discussion has been both 
theological and practical with the preponderance of opinion in favor of keeping Holy Spirit as a subject authorized heading.  
LC Policy Office was queried, but so far no comment has been received.  If you would like to participate in the discussion, 
please comment on the atlatech or NACO discussion lists.

Submitted by
Judy Knop, Metadata Curator
American Theological Library Association