Page 90 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

76 Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians
Gram mar of Sears subject headings in cludes sin gle and com pound
nouns, ad jectives with nouns, and phrase headings. Sim ilar to the Li-
brary of Con gress Sub ject Head ings, Sears also has four kinds of
sub di vi sions: phys i cal form, spe cial as pect or topic, chro nol ogy, and
place.
Symbols used in the six teenth edition of Sears List of Sub ject
Head ings are the same as those used in the Library of Con gress Sub -
ject Head ings. These in clude UF, SA, BT, NT, and RT, and they
maintain the same mean ings as explained ear lier in this chap ter when
dis cuss ing the Library of Con gress Sub ject Head ings. The Sears also
uses (May Sub Geog) to in dicate that the head ing may be sub divided
geographically, and a gen eral scope note explaining the head ing may
im me di ately fol low the head ing.
Libraries usu ally have local rules on the max imum num ber of sub -
ject headings as signed to an item, which are typed on the bot tom of
cards fol lowing an Arabic num ber. In au tomated libraries, any num -
ber of the de sired sub ject headings are keyed into the 6XX fields for
sub ject head ings. See and See also cards need to be typed for li braries
with man ual cat a log ing. In most au to mated li brar ies, the sub ject au-
thority files are al ready es tablished by the ven dor or the bib liographic
utility, and, therefore, the cat aloging staff need not manually de ter-
mine all in di vid ual ref er ences.
Other fea tures in the Sears List of Sub ject Head ings with which the
library tech nician needs to be fa miliar in clude “Head ings to Be
Added by the Cat aloger,” “Key Head ings,” and “List of Commonly
Used Sub di vi sions,” among oth ers. Sears List of Sub ject Head ings is
also in electronic for mat, to which libraries may sub scribe through
the Wil son Da ta base Li censing Ser vice.
After most of the Sears headings, one can find one or two sug -
gested Dewey num bers for the topic taken from the Abridged Dewey
Dec i mal Clas si fi ca tion and Rel a tive In dex.
Figure 5.5 shows the top of a page from Sears List of Sub ject
Head ings. A com parison with Fig ure 5.3, the sam ple from the Li-
brary of Con gress Sub ject Head ings, shows that they ba sically fol -
low the same prin ciples, only the LC head ings are more nu merous,
specific, and detailed. Because of re cord shar ing with other au to-
mated libraries, many con sortia now re quire their members to use the
Library of Con gress Sub ject Head ings and not Sears.