School of Information Management & Systems. Spring 2003.
245
Information in Collections.
Michael Buckland.
Old Library of Congress Subject Headings..
Unfortunately the Library has sent past editions of LCSH
to storage at the Northern Regional Library Facility. (If you really want
to see them you can have fetched back, or, better, drive out there to
the Richmond Field Station.)
For details of editions and holdings go to the MELVYL
catalog and do
F CN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND TW HEADINGS or similar
and AND AT UCB.
F XT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS gets books
about LCSH and some
specialized adaptations of LCSH for specialized topics.
Here are three resources you can use with less effort if you
want to find "quaint" older headings:
1. I bought an old edition in a book fair which I have placed in
the SIMS compter lab. One fat and faded red volume. From memory 1965,
maybe more recent, but predating most of the reforms ("political
correctness") associated with Sanford Berman and the like.
2. If you go to the stacks of the MAIN Library where the Z class
is you will find massive sets of printed book-form editions of the
NATIONAL UNION CATALOG published by or for the Library of Congress.
The first version was called something like CATALOG OF PRINTED CARDS
ISSUED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
It and later supplements were superseded by Library of Congress
Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints. Z733U57C22556 (in 600+ LARGE volumes!
It is an education just to look at it). Arranged by Main entry.
The catalog records reproduced often (but not always) have the LCSH
assigned to that record at the bottom. Many of these will be the
LCSH of the year the book was catalogued (usually but not necessarily
close to the year of publication).
It cannot be guaranteed that they have not been revised.
Arrangements by LCSH were also issued:
Library of Congress Catalog Books: Subjects. Z733U57C234 1950/54;
1955/59; 1960/64/; 1965/69; 1970/74; and annually 1975-1982.
These have the advantage that the LCSH under which the cards are
reproduced were the current LCSH for the date the volumes were
published - 1955 - 1982. This is the best place to go for that
period because you can understand the headings all the better because
you can see what titles they put under which headings.
3. LCSH in MELVYL and other library catalogs are usually the LCSH current
at the time of cataloging and not updated, but you cannot be certain that
it has not been updated.
TIP: Library of Congress Subject Headings can usually be dated from
their LCCN = Library Congress Control Number (previously LC Card No.)
printed on the lower right habd corner of the card -- or in the 010
field in a MARC display which has been in the form YY-NNNN, e.g. 65-1234,
which used to mean be a running number by year, e.g. the 1,234th catalog
record prepared in 1965.
Effective 2001, a YYYY-NNNNN format is used 2001-34567
to distinguish it from the 1901 LCCN 01-34567. There are some exceptions.
The best that I could find in a hurry is report (which I do not think
is complete) at
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/dcm_c3.pdf
LCCN
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lccn.html