Entering the Millennium: A New Century for LCSH
The
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) have been around since the late
nineteenth century. Originally a modified version of a subject headings list
published by the American Library Association, the Library of Congress chose
this list to begin their transformation to a dictionary form catalog. The LCSH
list started off as a subject access system for the Library of Congress, but
over the past century has evolved into a tool used by libraries throughout our
country and around the globe.
The
growth and acceptance of the LCSH can be attributed to the fact that the
Library of Congress made their cataloging records available to other libraries.
Beginning in 1902, LC began distributing its printed cards and in 1993 made
their collection of records available online. Being able to share resources
electronically made cataloging with the LCSH a breeze and cut down on manual
labor since catalogers did not have to create aa record from scratch for every
single item their institution acquired. Since catalogers had access to this
vast resource, why would they create their own way of cataloging when the work
is already done for them by the Library of Congress? The LCSH is one of the
largest non-specialized controlled vocabularies in the world. Many libraries
and commercial institutions that don’t use the LCSH at least use the list as a
model for their own systems. The LCSH can be used as is or can be modified or
translated to be used in a variety of specialized settings.
While
the LCSH list may not be perfect, many catalogers agree that this list is one
of the best retrieval tools available today. Due to dependable authority
control and a large vocabulary, there is a high retrieval recall rate for the
LCSH list. It’s structure is also dynamic in that is can easily be expanded based
on the institution’s needs.
At
the end of the twentieth century, we were able to see a great change in how the
LCSH was versus how it began in the late nineteenth century. With the advancing
online tools, we began to see bibliographic records using subject headings from
multiple schemas. Library users’ behavior changed with the online world. Called
the principle of least effort, library users were no longer willing to do much
work to find resources and when they get their electronic search results,
patrons are likely to only consider the first few results. Therefore, in order
to get the best results possible, schemas were combined so that whatever the user
put into the search box would give the best results in finding a match.
In
the future, who knows what will be in store for LCSH. As with anything, the
system will have to be adapted to the changing times and technology that is to
come. LCSH has come a long way and I have no doubt that it will continue to
evolve and grow to accommodate library needs in the forseeable future.
The
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) have been around since the late
nineteenth century. Originally a modified version of a subject headings list
published by the American Library Association, the Library of Congress chose
this list to begin their transformation to a dictionary form catalog.
The
growth and acceptance of the LCSH can be attributed to the fact that the
Library of Congress made their cataloging records available to other libraries.
Beginning in 1902, LC began distributing its printed cards and in 1993 made
their collection of records available online. Being able to share resources
electronically made cataloging with the LCSH a breeze and cut down on manual
labor since catalogers did not have to create aa record from scratch for every
single item their institution acquired. Since catalogers had access to this
vast resource, why would they create their own way of cataloging when the work
is already done for them by the Library of Congress?
The
LCSH is one of the largest non-specialized controlled vocabularies in the
world. Many libraries and commercial institutions that don’t use the LCSH at
least use the list as a model for their own systems. The LCSH can be used as is
or can be modified or translated to be used in a variety of specialized
settings.
Reference
Chan, L., & Hodges, T. (2000). Entering the millennium: A new century for LCSH. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 29(1/2):225-234
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