Re: LCSH browser

From: Karen Coyle <lists_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 06:28:57 -0700
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> These details show that the topical headings alone do not by far include
> everything anyone would intuitively expect when doing subject searches.
> Rather, every authority record, whatever type, can be used as a subject
> access point.
>

Actually, it's the 008 in the authority record that tells you how the 
heading can be used (main entry, subject entry, and/or series entry). 
Presumably not all are usable as subject entries, but I don't have an 
example on hand. That 008 field provides some fairly rich information, 
including things like:

*12 - Type of series*
a - Monographic series
b - Multipart item
c - Series-like phrase

*17 - Type of subject subdivision*
a - Topical
b - Form
c - Chronological
d - Geographic
e - Language

*28 - Type of government agency*
# - Not a government agency
a - Autonomous or semi-autonomous component
c - Multilocal
f - Federal/national
i - International intergovernmental
l - Local
m - Multistate
o - Government agency-type undetermined
s - State, provincial, territorial, dependent, etc.

+ whether or not it can be used as a subdivision, and others. It looks 
to me like the LCSH at id.loc.gov contains data at the tag level (150 v. 
151), but I don't think it included the detailed 008 data. It's possible 
that the MARC records for subjects don't have anything of interest at 
that level... that would take some investigation. I do hope that they 
include information from the 008 when they make the name authorities 
available.

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
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Received on Fri May 08 2009 - 09:30:45 EDT