Library Of Congress Subject Headings
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The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information science sense, a
controlled vocabulary A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled v ...
) of subject headings, maintained by the United States
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject Headings are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is the function by which libraries collect, organize, and disseminate documents. It was first published in 1898, a year after the publication of Library of Congress Classification (1897). The last print edition was published in 2016. Access to the continuously revised vocabulary is now available via subscription and free services. Subject headings are normally applied to every item within a library's collection and facilitate a user's access to items in the catalog that pertain to similar subject matter, in order to save time finding items of related subject matter. Only searching for items by 'title' or other descriptive fields, such as 'author' or 'publisher', would take more time and potentially miss locating many items because of the ineffective and inefficient search capability.


An art and a science

Subject heading is a human and intellectual endeavor, by which trained professionals apply topic descriptions to items in their collections. Without a uniform standard, each library might choose to categorize the subject matter of their items differently. The widespread use and acceptance of the ''Library of Congress Subject Headings'' facilitates the uniform access to and retrieval of items in libraries across the world; users can use the same search strategy and LCSH thesaurus, if the correct headings have been applied to the item by the library. Some LCSH decisions are achieved by extensive debate and even controversy in the library community. LCSH is the world's most widely used subject vocabulary. Despite LCSH's wide-ranging and comprehensive scope, libraries that deal with more specific types of collections or user communities may use other vocabularies; for example, many medical libraries in the United States use the National Library of Medicine's
Medical Subject Headings Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing Academic journal, journal articles and books in the Life science, life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus of index terms that facilitates searc ...
(MeSH).


LCSH policy issues

Historically, given the complicated nature of the United States, its various ethnic groups, and changing society, numerous classification issues have been related to the terms used to identify
racial Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...
or
ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
groups. The terms used to describe
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
have changed over time, especially during the 20th century. Until the 1990s, the LCSH administrators had a strict policy of not changing terms for a subject category. This was enforced to tighten and eliminate the duplication or confusion that might arise if subject headings were changed. As a result, the term 'Afro-American' to describe African-American topics in LCSH was used long after it lost currency and acceptance in the population. In 1996 LCSH decided to allow some alteration of terms to better reflect the needs and access of library users. But, many common terms, or 'natural language' terms, are not used in LCSH. This may limit the ability of users to locate items. Research has increased in
Library and Information Science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with inf ...
faculties related to identifying and understanding the cultural and gender biases that affect the terms used in LCSH; these may limit or deprive library users access to information stored and disseminated in collections. In 2016 LCSH was subject to national news coverage when the Library of Congress decided to revise the heading ' Illegal aliens', an action opposed by congressional Republicans. Sanford Berman, a notable American science scholar on this subject, has noted the difficulty in finding material on certain topics, such as various denialisms, because the Library of Congress has not yet incorporated the natural language terms for them, for example, climate change denialism, into LCSH. As ideas about human sexuality have changed in the United States since the late 20th century, the LCSH has been criticized for biased organization and description of materials on sexuality. For instance, works about heterosexuality are scarcely labeled as such in LCSH; this suggests that heterosexuality is the norm and only queer sexuality needs a separate classification.


Data access

The Subject Headings were formerly published in large red volumes (currently ten), which are typically displayed in the reference sections of research libraries. They also may be accessed online in th
Library of Congress Classification Web
a subscription service, or free of charge (as individual records) a
Library of Congress Authorities
The Library of Congress adds new headings and revisions to LCSH each month. A web service was set up by Ed Summers, a Library of Congress employee, circa April 2008, using SKOS to allow for simple browsing of the subject headings. lcsh.info was shut down by the Library of Congress's order on December 18, 2008. The library science and semantic web communities were dismayed, as expressed by
Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...
and Tim Spalding of LibraryThing. After some delay, the Library set up its own web service for LCSH browsing at id.loc.gov in April 2009.


Using LCSH

Timothy Binga, director of libraries at the Center for Inquiry, notes issues that make it more difficult to use the standardized language of LCSH to find material. These include systems that allow patrons to informally tag materials in the catalog, book creators and publishers who do their own cataloging, and the incorrect application of LCSH to controversial material. Increasingly, the use of
hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to Data (computing), data by a user (computing), user's point and click, clicking or touchscreen, tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to ...
ed, web-based Online Public Access Catalogues, or
OPAC The online public access catalog (OPAC), now frequently synonymous with ''library catalog'', is an online database of materials held by a library or Library consortium, group of libraries. Online catalogs have largely replaced the analog card c ...
s, allow users to hyperlink to a list of similar items displayed by LCSH once one item of interest is located. But, because LCSH are not necessarily expressed in natural language, many users may choose to search OPACs by keywords. Moreover, users unfamiliar with OPAC searching and LCSH, may incorrectly assume their library has no items on their desired topic, if they chose to search by 'subject' field, and the terms they entered do not strictly conform to a LCSH. For example, 'body temperature regulation' is used in place of 'thermoregulation'. The easiest way to find and use LCSH is to start with a 'keyword' search and then look at the Subject Headings of a relevant item to locate other related material.


Criticism


Indigenous studies

Indigenous material classification under LCSH has been criticized by scholars in Indigenous studies and
library science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...
for its inaccurate representation of Indigenous identities and works. LCSH has also been faulted for not recognizing Indigenous sovereignty and segregating Indigenous materials in Class E. The majority of Indigenous material are confined to 'E 99---Indian tribes and cultures', strictly separating Indigenous historical material from the rest of U.S History. Most materials on Indigenous art are placed under Class E instead of Class N, leading to the implications that Indigenous art is not serious art. LCSH also fail to represent how Indigenous ways of learning focus heavily on spatial, social and cultural relationships. LCSH use the term " Indian" which is considered inappropriate for scholarly use outside of referencing the
Indian Act The ''Indian Act'' () is a Canadian Act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still in force with amendments, it is the primary document that defines how t ...
, or similar historical legislature. The ambiguous nature of the word also perpetuates a cycle of miscataloguing. On
WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
, the search terms "Indians – Food" give results on South Asian Cuisine, while "Indian cooking" does not yield any results relating to Indigenous cooking.


Judaica

The compilation, Library of Congress Subject Headings in Jewish Studies, does not have a separate list of generally applicable subdivisions or geographic headings, but the introduction notes that it does include "the generally applicable subdivisions for Jews, Judaism, Hebrew language, and Israel ' The compiler goes on to explain that "some of these subdivisions are based on the pattern headings for ethnic groups, religions, languages , and places " Subdivisions based on pattern headings are interfiled with generally applicable ones (e g Encyclopedias), so it is hard for the Judaica cataloger to identify the subdivisions of Israel that may be applied to Holocaust for example. Weinberg, Bella Hass. (1993). Library Resources: The hidden classification in Library of Congress subject headings for Judaica. ''Library Resources and Technical services'' 37 (4): 369–379.


Developments in Canada

LCSH representatives worked with staff of the National Library of Canada to create a complementary set of Canadian Subject Headings (CSH) to express the topic content of documents on
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
and Canadian topics. In addition, the Brian Deer Classification System, developed by librarian A. Brian Deer ( Mohawk) for Aboriginal materials to express First Nations relationships, has been adapted for use in several First Nations libraries in Canada. It has been described as a valuable tool for "the decolonization of library collections created for and by Indigenous people,” as it allows for the "expression of indigenous world views." The Xwi7xwa Library at the Vancouver branch of the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
use First Nations House of Learning (FNHL) Subject Headings, a local variant of Brian Deer's system. It is fully integrated with the main UBC Library.


See also

* Library of Congress Linked Data Service * Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) * Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), a simplified syntax of LCSH * Library of Congress Classification * Minnie Earl Sears: formulated the ''Sears Subject Headings'', a simplification for use by small libraries. * AGROVOC * Books in the United States


References


External links


Browse LCSH online

Library of Congress Cataloging home page

Cataloging Distribution Service
– primary source of Library of Congress Subject Headings
Library of Congress Authorities
– allows users to look through the subject headings at no charge {{Authority control Library cataloging and classification Subject Headings Thesauri Controlled vocabularies