Page 168 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 9: Cataloguing and Subject Indexing: Principles and Practices

If you do decide to use subject headings for information processing, you should first study carefully Notes
a handbook dealing with the subject (see List of Further Readings at the back). It would go beyond
the scope of this manual to explain in detail how to proceed in such a case.

Subject Heading using LCSH

Imagine that you’re a bookworm, constantly buying and reading new books. At first, your book
collection is small enough that you simply add your new purchases randomly to your bookshelf in
no particular order. But by the time it grows to 100 or more books, you decide to organize your
collection so that you can find what you need easily without a lot of wasted time and effort.
You could arrange your books by author, title, colour, size, date purchased, language, hardback vs.
paperback, or many other ways. Any of these approaches is perfectly valid for an individual with a
relatively small collection, but libraries use none of these approaches. How do libraries – which
contain thousands and in some cases millions of books – arrange their collections?
Libraries organize their collections according to subject matter. This is an enormously complex,
evolving project that is based on three organizational tools: subject headings, classification systems,
and call numbers.

Subject Headings a Boon for Subject Search

When a book or other item is added to a library’s collection, a specialist known as a cataloguer examines
it and decides what the book is about. The cataloguer must describe the subject content of the book as
completely as possible by using standardized, officially approved words or groups of words known
as subject headings. He/she will assign between 1 and 5 subject headings to describe the content of a
book. Subject headings assigned by a human cataloguer make it possible for you to do a subject
search.
Subject headings can be one word, two or more words, a phrase, a city, a country, a geographic
region, or a person. The following are all valid subject headings:
• HOSPITALS
• ELECTROCHEMISTRY
• WOMEN IN MOTION PICTURES
• DATABASE MANAGEMENT
• FRANCE — ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Sometimes, the first word or phrase that comes to your mind is, in fact, the “correct” (i.e., the valid)
subject heading. For example, books on CHILDREN’S LITERATURE or PHOTOGRAPHY may be
found under those subject words.
At other times, however, subject headings are expressed in less obvious terms. For example, you
may look up the subject MOVIES in a catalogue or index and find nothing. Then you try FILMS –
again, no luck. You might assume that there is no information on the subject, but there are in fact
many books and articles on movies under the subject heading MOTION PICTURES.
Listed below are more examples of topics with subject headings that wouldn’t immediately come to
mind:
Topic: Finding a job
Subject Heading: APPLICATIONS FOR POSITIONS
Topic: Medieval art
Subject Heading: ART — MEDIEVAL

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