Page 75 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5

Subject Headings

So far, you have stud ied the first two steps in cat aloging: de scrip-
tive cataloging and choos ing main and added en tries. Now you are
ready to take the third step: as signing sub ject headings.
In search ing for in formation or do ing re search, a spe cific au thor or
title of ten is not a pri mary con sideration. Rather, most li brary us ers
attempt to discover ma terials in a particular field by first check ing un -
der the ap propriate sub ject. Thus, the task of as signing sub ject head-
ings to ma terials takes on great im portance. The pur pose of as signing
subject head ings is to list all the materials on a given subject un der a
uniform term or phrase, so that in one search library us ers not only
will be able to iden tify all the ma terials on a topic owned by the li -
brary, but also will find them side by side on the shelves. As with
choosing main and added en tries, dis cussed in Chap ter 4, as signing
subject head ings also creates more ac cess points for a work.
A sub ject heading may be a term; name of a per son, group, or
place; or a phrase. Ob viously, many dif ferent terms can be ap plied to
every sub ject. For ex ample, the term movie can be called mo tion pic -
ture, cin ema, film, and mov ing pic ture. If the choice and as signing
system were left to the in dividual cat aloger, or to the in dividual li -
brary, con fusion would re sult. Sim ilar to the use of rules for de scrip-
tive cataloging and for de ciding main and added en tries, ref erence
books are used to main tain uni formity in assigning sub ject headings.
Library of Con gress Sub ject Head ings is used by large li braries and
network li braries, large or small. Some smaller public li braries and
school li braries use the sec ond ref erence book for this pur pose, Sears
List of Sub ject Head ings.
In de termining what sub ject headings to as sign, the li brary tech ni-
cian should first de termine what the ma terial is about by, for ex ample,
in the case of a book, read ing or look ing at the book it self, its ta ble of

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