Power and Change in the US Cataloging Community

The US cataloging community is an interorganizational network with the Library of Congress (LC) as the lead organization, which reserves to itself the power to shape cataloging rules. Peripheral members of the network who are interested in modifying changes to the rules or to the network can use various strategies for organizational change that incorporate building ties to the decision-makers located at the hub of the network. The story of William E. Studwell’s campaign for a subject heading code illustrates how some traditional scholarly methods of urging change—papers and presentations—are insufficient to achieve reform in an interorganizational network, absent strategies to build alliances with the decision makers.