Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
The distribution of the list to other libraries was not, at first,
contemplated. The printing of the subject headings was undertaken to
facilitate the work of the catalogers in the Library of Congress,
and it was believed that, if supplied to other libraries in its
preliminary form, the list would give rise to many queries in regard
to unavoidable omissions and inconsistencies. It had not progressed
far, however, before many libraries intimated that it would be useful
to them to receive the letters as they were issued, and when requests
became too urgent for refusal, it was decided to supply copies at a
price insuring that only those libraries should order them which had
serious use for them. It was considered that 50 copies for distribution
outside the Library of Congress would surely be sufficient, but it
turned out that the estimate was too small, and, in consequence, there
has had to be much reprinting of the early letters of the alphabet. The
edition of the letter P, just issued, was 500 copies.
The scope of the list of headings is largely inclusive in its
character, covering subjects in all branches of knowledge as far as
they have been adopted in the Library of Congress catalog. The names
of persons and places are, however, omitted, also names of societies,
institutions, and bodies of various kinds, names of treaties and
conventions, and systematic names of genera and species in botany and
zoology.
The classes theology, and military and naval science are only partially
represented in the list, as these sections are not yet re-cataloged.
The classes language, literature, and philology, which are now in
the process of recataloging, are more fully, but not yet wholly,
represented. In the earlier letters of the alphabet, few headings in
law were introduced (as it has only been during the past few months
that the law headings have been systematically considered), but they
are now included in the list, and many of those omitted in the earlier
letters are being entered in the lists of additions to the subject
headings issued in connection with the main list.
We include in the list the more important subdivisions under a subject.
These subdivisions are printed in italics, and separated from the
main subject by a dash. One point to which I would especially call
the attention of librarians using the list is that ordinarily only
those subdivisions are printed under a subject which are distinctive,
or peculiar to that subject. General form subdivisions, such as
Directories, Periodicals, Societies, etc., which may properly be used
under any subject requiring them, are, as a rule, omitted from the
list. (A list of these form subdivisions can be found on p. 19 of the
"Preliminary list of subject subdivisions," issued by the library in
1910.) Under names of countries only the history subdivisions are
included.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account