LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS—Lesson One
Northeastern
Seminary
(
Library of Congress Subject
Headings—a set (currently four volumes) commonly called “the big red
books.” Known to librarians as LCSH,
this is a large thesaurus of subject headings arbitrarily chosen to represent
subject concepts. Other terms could have
been chosen, but the ‘chosen’ terms seem to best represent their designated
subjects as a whole. For example, you’re
like to learn more about what (typically urban) churches are doing to minister
to homeless people. The proper LCSH
subject heading is listed as:
Church work with the homeless
The
proper subject heading—used in the library catalog—is <Church work with the
homeless>. LCSH will list the proper
subject heading in boldface type, except in the following cases.
Churches, Small
USE Small churches
This
means “Don’t look in the library catalog under <Churches, Small> but
rather look under <Small churches>.
<Small churches> is the proper subject heading, but since it
follows the USE term, it’s not placed in boldface type.
*Remember--the
proper Library of Congress Subject Heading will be in boldface type, or
is the set of words following USE.
Under
<Church work with the homeless> you’ll see these terms:
(May Subd Geog)
[BV 4456]
<(May
Subd Geog)> “May Subdivide Geographically”--means that catalogers—if they
deem it necessary—might choose to assign the subject heading with a
geographical division.
Church work with the
homeless—United States
<[BV
4456]> means that catalogers at the Library of Congress have assigned a
specific slot in the Library of Congress Classification System for the subject
represented by this subject heading. It
does not mean that all resources tagged with this subject heading will be found
under BV 4456. Recent works probably
will be, but some older works will be found elsewhere.
Under
the <[BV 4456]> you’ll see another line of information:
BT Homeless persons
<Homeless
persons> is a broader term (BT) which designates an entirely separate
subject category. In the real world, the
two subjects designated by the headings <Homeless persons> and <Church
work with homeless persons> are related—and works classified under each
subject heading may be useful for the same research project. However, in the (artificial) world of subject
headings, resources may not be assigned a subject heading and its
“broader term.” The two subject headings
are entirely separate. This is called
the principle of exclusivity among catalogers.
Look under <Homeless persons> and you will find an entirely
different set of resources which will not be found under <Church work with
homeless persons>. To do thorough
research, it’s advisable to look under BOTH subject headings for resources.
WHERE
CAN I FIND LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS IN SPRAGUE LIBRARY? Ask at the Reference Desk.
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Last Modified
30 January 2006