Library of Congress Subject Headings
The Library of Congress Subject Headings ( LCSH ) form a thesaurus ( in the sense of Library Science ) with keywords, which is maintained by the Library of Congress in Washington. The LC Subject Headings help libraries to collect documents, organize and disseminate information. LCSHs be assigned to each medium in the library inventory and easier for users to locate other relevant literature on their topic. Could the users search the media only on the "title " or other formal, not the content be tapped fields like " author " or " editor ", they would have to use a lot of time trying to locate media on related topics. Undoubtedly many of them relevant titles would here because of the subject search ineffective search strategy missed. With LCSH comparable systems in other languages are the German Subject Headings Authority File ( SWD) and the French Répertoire d' autorité - matière encyclopédique et alphabétique unifié ( Rameau ).
An art and science
The Beschlagwortung is a task that requires a high level of knowledge and experience. Trained professionals in this case have the individual media of their holdings to the appropriate topic in the form of controlled vocabulary. So it is free to any library, to confiscate answer their holdings as they see fit, without using a generally established standard. However, the use and wide acceptance of the Library of Congress Subject Headings facilitates standardized access and retrieval of media in all libraries in the world, which also use the LCSH Thesaurus, provided that the correct Tags awarded by the library. Against this background it is understandable that often bring decisions about Subject Headings in the art controversy with them.
Despite the broad range of topics, covering the LCSH thesaurus, its use can prove to be ideal or effective for some libraries. In order to meet such stocks or their users the best possible way, there is the need for other tag systems. Thus, the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM ), the Medical Subject Headings ( MeSH) has developed. These are used for their numerous medical databases and inventories. Many American university libraries serve both the LCSH and MeSH.
Use
The LCSH be published in book form in five large red volumes. These are often kept in the hand stock of academic libraries (especially the U.S.). In the web the keywords in paid Library of Congress Classification Web made available. The Library of Congress publishes a weekly updated version. Once a library user has the appropriate keyword is found, it has an excellent tool for finding relevant literature for his subject in the catalog of his library (if there the LC Subject Headings are used). Increasingly, allows the use of internet-accessible online catalogs ( OPACs ) of that user once they have found one relevant to their topic title in the catalog, pass through the linking of there assigned Tags, the total catalog to a large number of hits related literature that was beschlagwortet with the same LC Subject Heading. So also offers the online catalog of the Library of Congress the possibility of factual search using the LCSH. Since, however, need not necessarily correspond to the LCSH natural language, many users prefer to use keywords for their search in the online catalog.
In addition, could library users who are not familiar with searching the OPAC or with LCSH, assume wrongly that their library has no literature on the subject required of them if they use the keyword search and the terms that they use, no standardized Keyword match and also no reference to the correct expression exists. For example, uses the Library of Congress instead of the term " thermoregulation " the buzzword " body temperature regulation". Therefore, it is the easiest way for finding a key word and to use the LCSH to first perform a plausible keyword search, select the matching of the keywords used in the results and initiate with them a keyword search to find as much literature on the theme.
Conclusion
Despite their weaknesses, the LCSH are used in many North American library catalogs and used worldwide. They must not be confused with the Library of Congress Classification, which does not attempt to represent the thematic content of media directly, but classifies the title within one from the general to the specific branching topic hierarchy. Many libraries, especially public libraries and school libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification to map out their stocks, but use the LCSH to the subject indexing.