The Library of Congress Subject Headings consists of a thesaurus (in the sense of information science, controlled vocabulary) of the subject title, administered by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic notes. LC Subject Headings are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is a function by which libraries collect, organize and distribute documents. LCSH is applied to each item in the library collection, and facilitates user access to items in the catalog related to similar material. If users can only find items with 'titles' or other descriptive fields, such as 'authors' or 'publishers', they should spend a lot of time looking for items related to the subject, and no doubt find many items due to ineffective search capabilities and not efficient.
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The classification of subject headings is human and intellectual effort, in which trained professionals apply topic descriptions to items in their collections. Of course, every library can choose to categorize their material subject differently, without a uniform standard. The widespread use and acceptance of the Subject Library of Negotiations facilitates uniform access and retrieval of items in any library in the world using the same search strategy and LCSH thesaurus, if the correct title has been applied to the item by the library. Thus, the LCSH decision involves a great deal of debate and even controversy in the library community.
Despite the wide and comprehensive scope of LCSH, there are libraries where the use of LCSH is not ideal or effective. To handle this collection type and user community, other subject titles may be required. The National Medical Library of the United States developed the Medical Subject Title (MeSH) for use in many health science databases and collections. Many university libraries may not use LCSH and MeSH titles for items. In Canada, the National Library of Canada works with LCSH representatives to create a complementary set of Canadian Subject Headings (CSH) to access and express the contents of document topics on Canadian and Canadian topics.
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LCSH policy issues
Historically, the problem has revolved around the terms used to describe racial or ethnic groups. Notable has become the term used to describe African-Americans. Until the 1990s, LCSH administrators had a strict policy not to change the terms for subject categories. This is applied to tighten and eliminate any duplication or confusion that may arise if the subject title is changed. Therefore, one term to describe African-American topics in LCSH is 'Afro-American' long after the term loses currency and revenue in the population. LCSH decided to allow some changes to the term in 1996 to better reflect the needs and access of library users. However, many common terms, or the term 'natural language' are not used in LCSH, and may apply to limit the ability for users to find items. There is a growing tradition of research in the Library and Information Science faculty about cultural and gender biases that affects the terms used in LCSH, which in turn may limit or eliminate library user access to information stored and distributed in collections. The famous American Library Science Expert on this subject is Sanford Berman.
Criticism also arises about the biased organization and the material description of sexuality. Working on heterosexuality is rarely labeled as such in LCSH, giving users the impression that only strange sexuality is worth checking for because heterosexuality is normative.
Data access
Subject Title is published in large red volume (currently ten), which is usually displayed in the reference section of the research library. They can also be searched online at the Library of Congress Web Classification, subscription service, or free (as an individual record) at the Library of Congress Authorities. The Library of Congress publishes weekly updates. The data is published for a fee by the Cataloging Distribution Service.
The web service, lcsh.info, was founded by Ed Summers, an employee of the Library of Congress, around April 2008, using SKOS to allow a simple search of subject titles. lcsh.info was closed by the Library of Congress commands on December 18, 2008. This announcement was met with great disappointment from library science and the semantic web community, such as Tim Berners-Lee and Team Spalding of LibraryThing. After some delays, the Library has set up its own web service for LCSH search at id.loc.gov in April 2009.
Using LCSH
Increasingly, the use of hyperlinks, a Web-based Online Access Public Directory, or OPAC, allows users to hyperlink to a list of similar items displayed by LCSH after one interesting item resides. However, since LCSH is not always stated in natural language, many users can choose to search OPAC by keyword. Additionally, users unfamiliar with OPAC and LCSH searches may mistakenly assume their libraries have no items on the topics they want, if they choose to search by subject field, and the terms they enter do not really match the LCSH. For example, 'body temperature regulation' is used instead of 'thermoregulation'. So the easiest way to find and use LCSH is to start with a 'keyword' search and then look at the Subject Title of the relevant item to search for other related material.
See also
- Library of Congressional Control Number (LCCN)
- Application of Subject Terminology Variety (CEPAT), simple syntax of LCSH
- Congressional Classification Library
- Minnie Earl Sears: formulates Sears Subject Headings , a simplification for use by small libraries.
- AGROVOC
- Books in the United States
References
External links
- Explore LCSH online
- Library Home from Congress
- Cataloging Distribution Service - the main source of the Congressional Meeting Library Reader
- Library of Congress Authorities - allows users to view via subject headings at no cost
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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