LCSH as thesaurus (was Re: FRBR WEMI and identifiers)

From: Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_nyob>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:51:28 -0500
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Well.... depends on what you want to accomplish exactly, and what you 
mean by ' "one-facet" topics, that is the headings that are simple, not 
compound.'

Certainly all of the headings with "--", that pre-coordinated from 
existing authorized terms, are compound and should be excluded.

But according to most thesaural understandings/definitions of "compound" 
vs "simple", there are a lot of compound terms left in the LCSH terms 
without "--" too.

For instance:

“Cookery, Indic”
“Absurd (Philosophy) in literature”
”Teachers of gifted children”

Those examples are all from McGrath's article on LCSH in facetted 
interfaces: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/23

Other examples include LCSH terms with "and" in them, for instance:

"Children & adults"
"Children & radio"
"Children & toys"

[Last time I looked at these, I thought the word 'and' was actually 
used, not an ampersand. Not sure if this has changed in LCSH practice 
since I last looked, or if both the spelled out word and the symbol are 
used in different circumstances.]

LCSH is a strange beast.

Dont' get me wrong, I think there is value in making sure there's a URI 
and an 'authority record' for every individual LCSH "term", even when 
it's a "compound term". But I wouldn't refer to this as making sure 
everything in that category are "simple terms", they are not, many of 
them will still be compound terms combining multiple concepts.

And I _think_ that nearly every indivudal LCSH term should already have 
an LCSH authority record? The exception might be certain "free floating" 
terms? Perhaps we should advocate that LC establish authority records 
for every individual term that can appear in an LCSH heading? Can anyone 
more familiar with LCSH than I say if this is feasible, and what other 
categories exist of individual terms (not with "--" in them) that do not 
have an authority record?

Jonathan


Karen Coyle wrote:
> Quoting Ross Singer <rossfsinger_at_GMAIL.COM>:
>
>
>   
>> This shouldn't be hard, if I understand you correctly.  You mean
>> anything we've currently got that doesn't have a "--" in the label,
>> right?
>>     
>
> That should do it. Yes, I think it's very simple.
>
> kc
>
>   
Received on Mon Nov 16 2009 - 10:53:45 EST