WWU’s Casey Mullin publishes new book, 'Many Pathways for Discovery'

April 16, 2024

A man with short brown hair and a beard is holding a book in front of his face. He is smiling and pointing at the book with his right hand. The book is titled "Many Pathways for Discovery: Describing Music Resources Using Faceted Vocabularies" by Casey A. Mullin.

WWU's Casey A. Mullin holds his new book, "Many Pathways for Discovery, Describing Music Resources Using Faceted Vocabularies."

Casey A. Mullin, head of Cataloging and Metadata Services at Western Washington University Libraries, recently published "Many Pathways for Discovery, Describing Music Resources Using Faceted Vocabularies."

This book is described as a:

“..manual for metadata practitioners learning music cataloging for the first time, as well as a ready reference tool for more experienced practitioners. It is intended to serve as a companion guide to general music cataloging instruction, focusing on what has traditionally been considered the more advanced skillset of subject analysis.”

The book includes guidance for understanding how to answer content questions when considering genre/form, medium of performance, demographic aspects, chronological aspects, and geographic aspects. Geared primarily toward a metadata environment based on MARC 21 encoding and on vocabularies developed by the Library of Congress, (namely, the Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Music (LCMPT), the Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), and the Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT)), it also includes comparisons to legacy practices involving Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), chapters on encoding of faceted descriptors in Linked Data environments, and a bibliography of foundational and supplemental resources.

Casey Mullin holds a master's degree Music from Western Washington University and a master's degree in Library Science (with music specialization) from Indiana University Bloomington. He is the head of Cataloging and Metadata Services at Western Washington University Libraries and is a music cataloger with over 15 years of experience. Prior to coming back to Western, he was Music Cataloger for the New York Public Library and Head of Data Control for the Stanford University Libraries.

Mullin participated in the early development of LCMPT and of the music terms within LCGFT. He has served in multiple leadership roles related to the development and broad implementation of faceted vocabularies, including as chair of the Music Library Association’s Vocabularies Subcommittee and as Chair of the American Library Association Core Subject Analysis Committee’s Subcommittee on Faceted Vocabularies. Mullin currently serves as a Managing Partner of the contract cataloging firm Flourish Music Metadata Solutions. He is the recipient of ALA’s Esther J. Piercy Award and the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG)’s Distinguished Service Award.