Library of Congress Changes “Gulf of Mexico” and “Mount Denali” subject headings–What you need to know

On Friday March 14, 2025, Library of Congress published changes to subject headings for “Gulf of Mexico” and “Mount Denali” with new official subject headings as follows:

• McKinley, Mount (Alaska)
• America, Gulf of
  • All related subject headings were also changed, for example “America, Gulf of, Watershed” and “Mid-ocean ridges—America, Gulf of”

These changes now appear in official Library of Congress subject authority files, and have been processed by OCLC, and from OCLC synced to the catalogs of other libraries using Library of Congress subject headings, including our LSP Program’s Alma institutions.

Both changes are controversial. Below you will find additional background information on the subject heading change as well as information about steps you can take at your Alma institution if you prefer not to use the Library of Congress’ new subject headings.

Background information: How and why the change happened

On January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14172 was issued. This order called for the renaming of Mount Denali and Gulf of Mexico by federal government agencies. For geographic features such as mountains and seas, the Library of Congress typically follows naming conventions in use by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) (H 690, Subject Headings Manual). As such, when BGN changed terminology in early February, Library of Congress did too, despite the controversy and politics involved in the decision, and despite the harm caused to library users when Indigenous and Mexican place names are erased and supplanted with names meant to celebrate “America” (meaning the “United States of America”) which is also arguably part of greater rhetoric meant to center and preserve whiteness and white culture in the United States. This has now become part of our authoritative subject headings as a result of the Executive Order, and subsequent follow through by BGN as the office who standardizes geographic terminology in use across federal agencies including Library of Congress.

Once BGN officially made their changes, the Library of Congress began their process to implement changes immediately thereafter as part of an off-cycle public review process. Tuesday, February 18, 2025, just after President's Day holiday, the Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs (PTCP) Division of Library of Congress published the off-cycle list of tentative subject heading changes (the list used the naming convention associated with December 2024, despite a February 13, 2025 backdated publication date). The community was invited to submit comments by the same day, Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Others have written about this short timeline. The new proposed changes have been announced and updated in the Library of Congress authority file as of March 14, 2025, can be found on the ClassWeb website, and appear in our local catalogs. It is unclear exactly when the changes were approved as the quarterly editorial meeting where the Summaries of Decisions from Subject Editorial Meetings is not meeting until April 18, 2025. Additional content posted on their Subject Editorial Meetings webpage from February office hours does not include relevant information.

Visit the Library of Congress website for more information about their process to add or revise a Library of Congress subject heading.

What this means for your records

As of Wednesday March 19, 2025, the first records with the new subject headings have been noticeable in your catalogs and Primo VE. See the examples pictured below. In addition to the main subject heading, they may appear in a variety of 6XX MARC Library of Congress subject fields with geographic subdivisions.

Example 1: The pirates Laffite

Example 2: Minus 148 degrees

Record Syncing and Some Issues Reported

Full bib record syncing from OCLC and indexing had not yet occurred by March 19, 2025, but individual records were present. Additional record updates have come into our Network Zone in subsequent loads. MARC records will include a note in field 995 $$c indicating that the 65X has been updated during the load, as pictured below. 

Notably, some colleges have reported search issues on these topics since the updates were made as terminology and indexing have likely been out of sync. It is expected to resolve as additional Network Zone jobs run. Our Network Zone Administrator has been alerted and is monitoring the situation.

Want to use “Gulf of Mexico” and “Mount Denali” Subjects? Here's how

We recommend use of a Primo VE display normalization rule for the subject field if you don't want to use LC’s new subject headings. Essentially it is an automatic find and replace function in Primo VE, that allows you to replace non preferred terminology with preferred terminology.

To edit display of the subject field in Primo VE, go to: Configuration Menu > Discovery > Display Configuration > Manage Display and Local Fields

Here is how to do it and instructions from Ex Libris.

This example Primo VE normalization rule from San Mateo County Community College District updates the terminology for both terms as follows, displaying in full record details LC subject line (600, 650, 651, 655, 662):

• “Denali, Mount (Alaska)”
• “Mexico, Gulf of”

Additionally, the normalization rule does the following:

• Changes Library of Congress subject “Illegal immigration” to “Unauthorized immigration”
• Limits display to primarily Library of Congress Subjects by hiding display of any subjects with 650 second indicator 1-8
• Limits display of uncontrolled vocabulary terms found in 653 by hiding any with second indicator 0-6, and 8
• Changes various uncontrolled vocabulary terms found in 653 including Gulf of Mexico, Mount Denali, Unauthorized immigration, and other terminology related to Change the Subject project previously approved by the LSP Governance Committee

Of note, when using a Primo VE normalization rule for subjects

• Only full record details display in Primo VE is changed (brief search results subject list in filters is not changed)
• All Primo VE views in the institution are updated
• MARC records are not changed
• Authority records are not changed
• Central Discovery Index (CDI) records are not changed

Resources

• Approved subject change lists (Monthly List 12 LCSH 2 (2025))
• Subject Editorial meetings
• SACO calendar with meeting schedule (next Subject Editorial meeting April 18th)
• RSS feeds Library of Congress Vocabularies
• Subscribe to “Library of Congress Vocabularies Announcements” to receive tentative lists, approved lists, and summaries of decisions.
• Process for Adding and Revising Library of Congress Subject Headings
• Evaluating Process Proposals (PDF)
• ALA Subject Analysis Committee response to subject change proposal (PDF)
• Anticipatory Obedience at the Library of Congress by Violet Fox.

Special thanks to Yvonne Reed and the Harmful Language Review Subgroup. Updated April 2, 2025 4:50pm to correct the publication timeline of the tentative list from Library of Congress.