Alva T. Stone - The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System

The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System

The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System has been co-published simultaneously as Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, Volume 29, Numbers 1/2 2000.

The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System

Alva T. Stone, MLS
Editor

The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System has been co-published simultaneously as Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, Volume 29, Numbers 1/2 2000.

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The LCSH Century : One Hundred Years with the Library of Congress Subject Headings System has been co-published simultaneously as Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, Volume 29, Numbers 1/2 2000.

2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The LCSH century : one hundred years with the Library of Congress subject headings system/Alva T. Stone, editor.
p. cm.
Published also as v. 29, no. 1/2 2000 of Cataloging & classification quarterly.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7890-1168-9 (alk. paper)lSBN 0-7890-1169-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Subject headings, Library of Congress. I. Stone, Alva T. II. Cataloging & classification quarterly.
Z695.Z8 L5238 2000
025.49dc21 00-039568

About the Editor

Alva T. Stone, MLS, has practiced cataloging at Florida State University for 25 yearsfirst at the Main Library and later at the Law Library, except for a two-year hiatus as Librarian of the FSU Study Center in Florence, Italy. She served for four years on the Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) of the American Library Associations ALCTS Cataloging & Classification Section, and authored the 1992 years work in subject analysis survey for Library Resources & Technical Services. Other publications of Ms. Stone have appeared in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, Law Library Journal, and American Libraries. She has also served as Chair of two sections and one committee of the American Association of Law Libraries, and on advisory committees of the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA). She has taught Bibliographic Organization as an adjunct professor at the FSU School of Information Studies, and since 1987 has been contributing editor for the Subject Headings column in Technical Services Law Librarian.

Alva T. Stone

Summary. The history of the Library of Congress Subject Headings is traced, from its beginnings with the implementation of a dictionary catalog at the Library of Congress in 1898 to the present day. The author describes the most significant changes which have occurred in LCSH policies and practices during the 100-year period. Events noted near the end of the century indicate an increased willingness on the part of the Library of Congress to involve the larger library community in the creation or revision of subject headings and other decision-making regarding the LCSH system. Finally, the author provides a summary of the other contributions to this collection of essays, a collection which celebrates the centennial of the worlds most popular library subject heading language. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: ]

Keywords. Library of Congress Subject Headings, subject heading languages, subject access

The summer of 1998 witnessed a different sort of celebration in Washington, DC than the usual Fourth of July fireworks on The Mall. At the Library of Congress speeches were made, awards presented, and a cake designed to look like a big red book was ceremoniously sliced and consumed by invited guests. It was the 100th birthday of one of LCs perennial bestsellers, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH ).

Technically speaking, LCs publication of its subject headings list did not really begin in 1898. That was instead the year in which the Library of Congress converted from an authorplus a classedcatalog to a dictionary catalog, which incorporated author, title, and subject entries into a single file. For its first subject headings, LC used the American Library Associations List of Subject Headings for Use in Dictionary Catalogs (1st ed., 1895; 2nd ed., 1898), to which the LC catalogers added new headings as they were needed. Meanwhile, with the ALA community clamoring for greater standardization as well as more cooperative cataloging, there arose a ready and appreciative market for the LC catalog Card Distribution Service, which began in 1902. To the larger and outside library world, then, that was when subject headings formulated and assigned by LC began to be noticed and utilized; hence, the year 2002 might be a reasonable candidate for the centennial of LCSH . The first actual printing of Subject Headings Used in the Dictionary Catalogues of the Library of Congress (later to be titled Library of Congress Subject Headings) began in the summer of 1909, was issued in parts, and was completed in March 1914. Based strictly on first-edition data, therefore, one could argue that the 100th year of the LCSH will not occur until 2009, or even 2014. However, there was some publication history prior to 1909. As shown in the Chronology of Official LCSH -Related Publications appended to this essay, in 1906 the Library of Congress published a preliminary list of subject subdivisions for place names and of subjects that could be subdivided by place. With all of these different dates to mark a beginning, perhaps it is the most sensible thing to choose 1898, assuming this to have been the year that the very first modification to the ALA List was made for LC use, and hence, the evolution of the Library of Congress SubjectHeadingswas begun. At any rate, the span of dates certainly coincides closely enough to those belonging to the 20th century, and that is why we have chosen for the present collection the title, The LCSH Century.

In this collection of papers there are frequent references to the guidelines for subject access delineated by Charles Ammi Cutter. This is remarkable because his