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Library of Congress Subject Headings

[ *   Introduction  | *   Sources for LC Subject Headings  | *   Library of Congress Subject Subdivisions  | *   Table of Contents (Subject Analysis)  |  *  Table of Contents (Top)]

Introduction

Like other headings in bibliographic records, subject headings serve to bring records for similar works together and make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. Unlike author, title, and series entries, however, subject entries are not taken directly from the book, but are assigned from a list of headings previously agreed on.

Subject headings may be of various kinds:

Personal, corporate, and place names, and uniform titles, are in almost all cases established the same way in the Name Headings or Series and Uniform Title Headings indexes as in the Subject Headings index. (For an exception, see Taiwan.) They may have further subdivisions similar to those used with topical headings; see Library of Congress Subject Subdivisions for more information.

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are (mainly) topical subject headings, which cataloguers at LC have established to provide access points to the subjects of books in the LC collection. The LC list is also used at other large libraries, including Queen's.

See also Canadian Subject Headings for some non-LCSH subject headings authorized for use at Queen's. In case of conflict, always prefer the LCSH heading unless the use of the Canadian heading is specifically authorized by a Queen's authority record.

The Health Sciences Library uses the MESH subject headings, from a list produced by the National Library of Medicine in the U.S. They may be distinguished by an second indicator 2 instead of LC's 0.

Subject headings from other sources, or from no source in particular, also appear in the Queen's catalogue. If you come across LC Children's headings (indicator 1), please remove them. Headings with indicator 4, common in Microlog records, may be changed to 0 if you determine that they match LC authorities; otherwise they are best left alone.

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Sources for LC Subject Headings

Library of Congress subject headings found in copy may be checked, and original cataloguers may look for suitable headings in, a number of sources:

An original cataloguer tries to understand the work in hand well enough to select from the list subject headings that will help users find the work if it matches their needs, and (preferably) not find it if it does not. This is an imperfect art at best.

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Created by D. Rutherford, June 17, 2004

Page maintained by Elizabeth A. Read, readel@queensu.ca. Updated: 17-Jun-2004 02:11 PM PM