I just wanted to point out that even though LCSH strings may appear in a bib record, that doesn't mean they are correct. So one reason you can't find
Teenage girls -- Fiction -- Comic books, strips, etc.
is that it's not a legitimately-constructed LCSH.
LC's Subject Cataloging Manual states
"The form subdivision -Comic books, strips, etc. denotes both fiction and non-fiction works." (H1430)
So for better or worse, for comics, you use only $v Comic books, strips, etc. without fiction. There is now a way to indicate the distinction in 008, but not in the subject headings.
This is one reason why I think a rule-based approach to authorizing LCSH would be so much better than LC's current short-sighted approach of authorizing common strings explicitly (which is an exponentially great amount of work that brings no future benefits outside of a pre-coordinated string system and that is prone to human error). Adding the info needed for a rule-based system would have the side effect of producing narrower facet types than "topic" in many cases.
Kelley McGrath
Kmcgrath_at_bsu.edu
Received on Tue Nov 03 2009 - 16:29:28 EST