Re: Interoperability - subject classification/terminology

From: Guy Aron <guyaron_at_YAHOO.COM.AU>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 16:21:49 +1100

David Goodman wrote

> LC subject headings -- and the LC classification -- were never meant to
> apply to individual articles.
> The systems were devised, and have been maintained, to describe and
> classify entire books. (There do exist other systems that were intended to
> be suitable for both books and articles, such as BSO and UDC.)
>
> As a librarian, I consider both LC systems to be of only slight
> usefullness in science for books, even if one is an
> expert in the system, and totally useless and misleading if one is not.
> They are more valuable for books in other fields--I am told LC subject
> headings work nicely in history, and the LC classification for
> literature.
>
> As applied to journal articles, either of them is absurd altogether.
> The existing indexing and classifying systems for journal articles,
> such as Inspec's or Chem Abs's have enough difficulties,
> without using a system not even intended for the purpose.
>
> In science, if you write a descriptive title
> and an informative abstract that includes all the important
> keywords, free text searching and citation linking will do much better
> than LC.

Dr Goodman is entitled to his opinion. Before more electrons get spilt
on this discussion, I would still like clarification as to whether the
original poster was being asked to contribute LC classification numbers
or LC headings. (I understand that Dr Goodman thinks they're both equally
useless.) When this has been resolved maybe we'll have a better idea
about what we're debating.

Guy Aron
Received on Wed Mar 12 2003 - 05:21:49 GMT