Page 126 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Unit 13: Subject Headings

13.1 Sears List of Subject Heading Notes

The 19th edition of the Sears List of Subject Headings melds the traditional with the new. New headings
and categories that address contemporary issues join the traditional streamlined approach to subject
headings found in Sears. The combination continues to make Sears the choice of most school and
public libraries. Sears 19 breaks new ground in helping both teacher-librarians and public librarians
enhance records by adding subject headings and metadata that will enhance the cataloguing description
of the item and thus provide contextual reference for both identification and content analysis.

Several notable 19th edition features include over 440 completely new subject
headings and two totally new categories — “Islam” and “Graphic Novels.”

Expanded coverage of headings in the science/technology, lifestyle/entertainment, politics/world
affairs, and literature/arts categories are also noteworthy additions.
Once again, Joseph Miller and Barbara Bristow maintain the primary mission of Sears by using
simplified vocabulary specifically geared for the school and small public library setting and by
retaining an awareness of the descriptive searching and cataloguing needs from an educator’s
perspective. In addition, both Miller and Bristow take time to focus in-depth on the mechanics of
creating Sears subject headings. They emphasize that there exist certain “Sears-specific “ subject
heading elements and developmental strategies which apply specifically to identifying and/or
creating Sears headings to use in metadata describing materials from both a “child-centered” and
“K-12 curriculum perspective.”
For example, Sears 19 provides broad conceptual overviews and detailed instructions for the four
types of Sears subject headings — topical, form, geographic, and proper names. Both the forms of
the headings (i.e., single words, compound headings, phrase headings, etc.) and the rules for creating
and adding subdivisions (i.e., chronological, geographic, form, etc.) — as well as their order of
presentation — are included in the “Principles of the Sears List” chapter.
While Sears does a fine job of providing comprehensive subject heading coverage, there are some
subjects that are difficult to address descriptively using the Sears structure, notably descriptions for
biographies (both individual and collective), nationality descriptions, literary forms (including
criticisms and collections), government policy, etc.
Sears provides suggestions for working with its headings in relation to these material forms and
concepts. However, for those items and topics that cannot be adequately described using the Sears
List of Subject Headings (or other “controlled/authority file-monitored “ subject thesauri such as
the Library of Congress Subject Headings — LCSH), strategies exist for incorporating local or
“uncontrolled/non-authority file-monitored” headings into metadata records created using the
MARC metadata standard. One of these strategies is to enter these headings into the MARC field
tag 653 – Uncontrolled Heading.
Another great improvement to the Sears 19th ed. is the streamlining of several subject headings that
may have evolved or needed structural modification to clarify their meaning. For example, the
heading Stereotype (Psychology) was discontinued and replaced with Stereotype (Social Psychology).
Likewise, the heading Libraries and the Elderly is now Elderly — Library Services.
Of course, the structural flexibility of Sears remains. Users can create a variety of authorized headings
based on one template heading or guideline, such as adding specific breeds of dogs “as needed.”
While some may view structural flexibility as an advantage, others consider this aspect of Sears its
“missing link,” desiring more concise entry rules.
To address those criticisms, Sears includes some specific guidelines in the aforementioned “Principles
of the Sears List” chapter. Once again, this chapter can be used as a pocket catalogueer’s guide. It

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 121