Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are increasingly seen as 'the' English language controlled vocabulary, despite their lack of a theoretical foundation, and their evident US bias. In mapping exercises between national subject heading lists, and in exercises in digital resource organization and management, LCSH are often chosen because of the lack of any other widely accepted English language standard for subject cataloguing. It is therefore important that the basic nature of LCSH, their advantages, and their limitations, are well understood both by LIS practitioners and those in the wider information community. Information professionals who attended library school before 1995 - and many more recent library school graduates - are unlikely to have had a formal introduction to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Paraprofessionals who undertake cataloguing are similarly unlikely to have enjoyed an induction to the broad principles of LCSH. This is the first compact guide to LCSH written from a UK viewpoint. Key topics include: • background and history of LCSH • subject heading lists • structure and display in LCSH • form of entry • application of LCSH • document analysis • main headings • topical, geographical and free-floating sub-divisions • building compound headings • name headings • headings for literature, art, music, history and law • LCSH in the online environment. Readership: There is a strong emphasis throughout on worked examples and practical exercises in the application of the scheme, and a full glossary of terms is supplied. No prior knowledge or experience of subject cataloguing is assumed. This is an indispensable guide to LCSH for practitioners and students alike.
Classification is a crucial skill for all information workers involved in organizing collections. This new edition offers fully revised and updated guidance on how to go about classifying a document from scratch. Essential Classification leads the novice classifier step by step through the basics of subject cataloguing, with an emphasis on practical document analysis and classification. It deals with fundamental questions of the purpose of classification in different situations, and the needs and expectations of end users. The reader is introduced to the ways in which document content can be assessed, and how this can best be expressed for translation into the language of specific indexing and classification systems. Fully updated to reflect changes to the major general schemes (Library of Congress, LCSH, Dewey and UDC) since the first edition, and with new chapters on working with informal classification, from folksonomies to tagging and social media, this new edition will set cataloguers on the right path. Key areas covered are: - The need for classification - The variety of classification - The structure of classification - Working with informal classification - Management aspects of classification - Classification in digital space. This guide is essential reading for library school students, novice cataloguers and all information workers who need to classify but have not formally been taught how. It also offers practical guidance to computer scientists, internet and intranet managers, and all others concerned with the design and maintenance of subject tools.
The first comprehensive theoretical treatise on Library of Congress subject headings, this important book provides an analysis of the Library of Congress subject heading system and its application. Library of Congress Subject Headings aims to help improve the clarity of the system, increase consistency and arrangement, increase the number of effective access points, facilitate the interaction of the system with the computer, and generally to make the Library of Congress subject heading system and its application of even greater value to the cataloger and the user. Practicing catalogers, library school personnel, advanced students, and any professional who is very knowledgeable about and seriously interested in Library of Congress subject headings will want to read this highly acclaimed volume. Author William Studwell includes theoretical, conceptual, and philosophical considerations based on 25 years of everyday practical cataloging and indexing work and the knowledge gained from theoretical research for the more than two dozen articles on subject cataloging that he has written in the last decade. He presents thought-provoking, often controversial material in three parts. The first section, “The System,” deals with the basic philosophical foundations of LC subject headings. Thirty-two “principles”--guidelines and suggestions are offered along with detailed explanations, examples, and their relationships to other principles. The second section, “Application,” focuses on the matters of subject cataloging practice, or interpretation and application of LC subject headings. The third section, “The Future,” looks ahead to future issues relating to subject cataloging, such as the development of a theoretical subject heading code, the interface of LC subject headings with the computer, and some speculation as to the role and nature of LC subject headings in the years to come.
A new edition of this best-selling textbook reintroduces the topic of library cataloging from a fresh, modern perspective. • Delineates the new cataloging landscape • Shares a principles-based perspective • Provides introductory text for beginners and intermediate students • Emphasizes descriptive and subject cataloging, as well as format-neutral cataloging • Covers new cataloging rules and RDA
Written for beginning library science students, this book introduces the theory and practice of organizing library collections in a clear, straightforward, and understandable way. It explains why and how libraries organize their collections, and how theory and practice work together to help library users.
Indexing consists of both novel and more traditional techniques. Cutting-edge indexing techniques, such as automatic indexing, ontologies, and topic maps, were developed independently of older techniques such as thesauri, but it is now recognized that these older methods also hold expertise. Indexing describes various traditional and novel indexing techniques, giving information professionals and students of library and information sciences a broad and comprehensible introduction to indexing. This title consists of twelve chapters: an Introduction to subject readings and theasauri; Automatic indexing versus manual indexing; Techniques applied in automatic indexing of text material; Automatic indexing of images; The black art of indexing moving images; Automatic indexing of music; Taxonomies and ontologies; Metadata formats and indexing; Tagging; Topic maps; Indexing the web; and The Semantic Web. Makes difficult and complex techniques understandable Contains may links to and illustrations from websites where new indexing techniques can be experienced Provides references for further reading
This unique annotated bibliography is a complete, up-to-date guide to sources of information on library science, covering recent books, monographs, periodicals and websites, and selected works of historical importance. In addition to compiling an invaluable list of sources, Bemis digs deeper, examining the strengths and weaknesses of key works. A boon to researchers and practitioners alike, this bibliography Includes coverage of subjects as diverse and vital as the history of librarianship, its development as a profession, the ethics of information science, cataloging, reference work, and library architecture Encompasses encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, photographic surveys, statistical publications, and numerous electronic sources, all categorized by subject Offers appendixes detailing leading professional organizations and publishers of library and information science literature This comprehensive bibliography of English-language resources on librarianship, the only one of its kind, will prove invaluable to scholars, students, and anyone working in the field.
An overview of the field of information organization that examines resource description as both a product and process of the contemporary digital environment. This timely book employs the unifying mechanism of the semantic web and the resource description framework to integrate the various traditions and practices of information and knowledge organization. Uniquely, it covers both the domain-specific traditions and practices and the practices of the ‘metadata movement’ through a single lens – that of resource description in the broadest, semantic web sense. This approach more readily accommodates coverage of the new Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard, which aims to move library cataloguing into the centre of the semantic web. The work surrounding RDA looks set to revolutionise the field of information organization, and this book will bring both the standard and its model and concepts into focus. Key topics include: • information resource attributes • metadata for information retrieval • metadata sources and quality • economics and management of metadata • knowledge organization systems • the semantic web • books and e-books, websites and audiovisual resources • business and government documents • learning resources • the field of information/knowledge organization. Readership: LIS students taking information organization courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, information professionals wishing to specialise in the metadata area, and existing metadata specialists who wish to update their knowledge.
