b'A History of the Sears Listprevailing thinking in the field of library and information science, all remaining inverted headingswere canceled in favor of the uninverted form. Likewise, the display of the List on the page waschanged to conform to the NISO standards for thesauri approved in 1993. While Sears remains a listof subject headings and not a true thesaurus, it uses the labels BT, NT, RT, SA, and UF for broaderterms, narrower terms, related terms, See Also, and Used for. A List of Canceled and ReplacementHeadings was added to facilitate the updating of catalogs. Also in the fifteenth edition manyheadings were added to enhance access to individual works of fiction, poetry, drama, and otherimaginative works, such as films and radio and television programs, based on the Guidelines onSubject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, etc. prepared by a subcommittee of theSubject Analysis Committee of the ALA. These headings have since been updated in accordancewith the Second edition of the Guidelines (2000).In the sixteenth edition (1997) further instructions were added for the application of subdivisions, andthe headings in the field of religion were extensively revised to reduce their exclusively Christianapplication and make them more useful for cataloging materials on other religions.The major feature of the seventeenth edition (2000) was the revision of the headings for the nativepeoples of the Western Hemisphere. The headings Indians, Indians of North America, Indians ofMexico, etc., were cancelled in favor of Native Americans, which may be subdividedgeographically by continent, region, country, state, or city. In further revisions in the seventeenthedition, many headings that formerly incorporated the word modern were simplified and clarified,such as Modern history and Modern art, and headings for various kinds of government policywere revised and regularized.The eighteenth edition of the Sears List (2004) and the nineteenth edition (2007) saw the inclusionof many hundreds of new subject headings. The eighteenth edition included significant addition tothe Principles of the Sears List regarding the treatment of individual works of fiction, drama, andpoetry. The nineteenth edition features a major development of new headings in the areas of Islamand Graphic novels.The twentieth edition of the Sears List (2007) was the last to be published under the auspices of theH. W. Wilson Company and with the editorial guidance of Joseph Miller. In 2011, the H. W. WilsonCompany became a subsidiary of EBSCO Information Services, a research content provider basedin Ipswich, MA that has provided databases, e-books, and e-journals to libraries of all types foralmost thirty years. The Wilson offices located in the Bronx, NY were closed and all work on theSears List transferred to EBSCO employees as of January 2012.The twenty-first edition of the Sears List was the first to be published with the assistance of theSears Advisory Board, which was convened with the goal of improving the accuracy, breadth, andinclusiveness of the Sears List. This collaborative group is comprised of public and schoollibrarians, many of whom are actively working in their fields and have served on catalogingcommittees for the American Library Association, including the Cataloging of Childrens MaterialsCommittee. Their inaugural meeting took place in June 2013 at the American Library AssociationAnnual Conference. The Sears Advisory Board will continue to meet several times a year digitallyand in-person at relevant conferences to continue development of the Sears List and ensure itscontinuing usefulness to libraries.A-12'