Great Britain (revision in LCSH and NAF); and geographic name policy

On February 19, 2025, Judith Cannan, then chief of PTCP, announced on PCCList in response to feedback about tentative monthly list 2412a received during February 13-18. Her response indicated that “The Library of Congress defers to the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) for place names contained within our controlled vocabularies and classification. For more information, please see our Subject Headings Manual sheet H 690 Formulating Geographic Headings and visit the BGN webpage.”

The BGN form for this jurisdiction is United Kingdom, not Great Britain. Great Britain, meanwhile, is a separate entity in BGN, an island that is separate from the island that includes Northern Ireland, which is part of the jurisdiction known more fully as United Kingdom of Great Britain *and* Northern Ireland. It is established in the NAF and in LCSH:

https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79023147.html

https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056605.html

In the latter, it has this scope note:

• • Here are entered works on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which comprises England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, as well as works on the island of Great Britain. Works on the Republic of Ireland and on the island of the British Isles called Ireland are entered under [Ireland.] Works on the non-jurisdictional island group comprising the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, and smaller adjacent islands are entered under [British Isles.]

The use of the conventional name “Great Britain” for the jurisdiction is both inaccurate with respect to Northern Ireland, and also goes against the stated deferral to BGN. There would understandably be a massive amount of file maintenance involved in changing this long-standing exception in both the NAF and LCSH, but the MGD does not reveal any principled justification for keeping this exception except that it’s BL practice. On the other hand, if an exception to the BGN can be made on behalf of the British Library, I find it hard to accept that LC is unable to make exceptions in other cases and had no choice but to defer to the BGN’s decision to change “Mexico, Gulf of” to “America, Gulf of.” Couldn’t we just as easily introduce a Policy Statement/MGD that says “Follow Biblioteca Nacional de México’s practice and use the name ‘Mexico, Gulf of'” or other similar exceptions?  We can anticipate other attempts by our current government to rename or claim jurisdiction over other places and features, and that BGN, which reports to the Secretary of the Interior, will follow. LC is understandably a federal agency but does not report to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither does PCC, which is non-governmental and has international membership.

So, if the deferral to BGN with respect to geographic names is as absolute as claimed by LC, I think these steps would be necessary: 1. Revise all LCSH and NAF headings using the form “Great Britain” for the jurisdiction to “United Kingdom”. 2. Revise the  existing LCSH  form to “Great Britain (Island)” and update its scope note so that it represents only the island, and revise the scope note for existing LCSH “British Isles“. 3.  Remove the exceptions found in the MGDs/PSs mentioned above.

Or if not: Revise LC/PCC policy (including SHM H690 and the LC PCC PS/MGDs mentioned above for the RDA element: preferred name of place and access point for place, mentioned above), to give greater weight to other authoritative sources besides GNIS/BGN. This seems especially true for establishing or changing names of international waters, disputed territories, and other geographic features shared across tribal or national jurisdictions.