LibGuides: The Library of Congress Classification System: Library of Congress Subject Headings

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) Overview

How can subject headings help me with my searching and researching? Subject heading searches can help you be more effective and efficient in your research and may aid in finding relevant resources that you might miss with just keyword searching.

The LCSH is the only subject headings list accepted as the worldwide standard, providing an alphabetical list of all subject headings, cross-references, and subdivisions in the Library of Congress subject authority file.

The Library of Congress Subject Headings is a four-volume set of books (currently not in print), arranged alphabetically. El Camino College library has a set the Reference area. It lists valid or approved terms used by the Library of Congress. Updates are available online.

A subject heading is a word or phrase, which describes or represents a concept or topic. Most subject headings are common, everyday words. People, places, and organizations may also be used as subject headings. If you want to read a book about Spike Lee, the movie director, you search under Lee, Spike as a subject heading.

Problems occur when people use different words to describe a subject. To avoid confusion, and aid precision, libraries use standardized lists of words and phrases called controlled vocabulary. That is, only certain words may be used as subject headings.

Occasionally LC subject headings are not the same as commonly used terms, as seen in the examples below:

The valid subject headings are always in bold face and may consist of one or more words. Some headings are followed by Library of Congress classification letter(s) and numbers. LCSH contains cross-references that refer the users from one heading to another, for instance the USE heading (May also be known as the SEE heading)

USE Refers you from an unauthorized or non-preferred term to an authorized or valid heading.

Example 1 Cooking

USE Cookery

Example 2 Cars (automobiles)

USE Automobiles

Example 3 Movies

USE Motion Pictures

Learn ore about Library of Congress Subject Headings with this helpful publication Understanding and Using Library of Congress Subject Headings

Why the LCSH Is Changing

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) reflect the language used by people who have the power to create policy. Over time, the Subject Headings have shifted in tone toward acknowledging Intersectionality, but it is still a work in progress. Here are some articles about this process.

SEARCH TERMS UP FOR DEBATE The Politics and Purpose of Library Subject Headings
Article by Tina Gross, February 15, 2022 in The Newsmagazine of the American History Association: Perspectives on History.
Repairing Bias In he Library of Congress Subject Headings
A brief article about the history and future of LCSH with links to related articles.

El Camino College Library Materials for Further Research

Cataloguing and Classification by Fotis Lazarinis
ISBN: 9780081001615
Publication Date: 2014-12-12
Cataloguing and Classification introduces concepts and practices in cataloguing and classification, and common library standards. The book introduces and analyzes the principles and structures of library catalogues, including the application of AACR2, RDA, DDC, LCC, LCSH and MARC 21 standards, and conceptual models such as ISBD, FRBR and FRAD. The text also introduces DC, MODS, METS, EAD and VRA Core metadata schemes for annotating digital resources.
Essential Library of Congress Subject Headings by Vanda Broughton
ISBN: 9781783300365
Publication Date: 2012
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are increasingly seen as'the'English language controlled vocabulary, despite their lack of a theoretical foundation, and their evident US bias. In mapping exercises between national subject heading lists, and in exercises in digital resource organization and management, LCSH are often chosen because of the lack of any other widely accepted English language standard for subject cataloguing. It is therefore important that the basic nature of LCSH, their advantages, and their limitations, are well understood both by LIS practitioners and those in the wider information community. Information professionals who attended library school before 1995 - and many more recent library school graduates - are unlikely to have had a formal introduction to LCSH. Paraprofessionals who undertake cataloguing are similarly unlikely to have enjoyed an induction to the broad principles of LCSH. This is the first compact guide to LCSH written from a UK viewpoint. Key topics include: background and history of LCSH subject heading lists structure and display in LCSH form of entry application of LCSH document analysis main headings topical, geographical and free-floating sub-divisions building compound headings name headings headings for literature, art, music, history and law LCSH in the online environment. Readership: There is a strong emphasis throughout on worked examples and practical exercises in the application of the scheme, and a full glossary of terms is supplied. No prior knowledge or experience of subject cataloguing is assumed. This is an indispensable guide to LCSH for practitioners and students alike.
Library of Walls by Samuel Gerald Collins; David Heckman (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9780980200423
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
In Library of Walls, Samuel Collins engages the heterogeneities of information society at the Library of Congress through ethnographic fieldwork, suggesting that "information society" is best understood at the locus of conflicting modalities imbricating text, space, work and life. During the 1990's, the Library of Congress was beset with challenges to its traditional roles in cataloging and scholarship while at the same time re-inventing itself as a library "without walls." The "order of books" was threatened on several fronts: in the explosive growth of accessions, in the challenges of online materials and different container types, and in fundamental disagreements about the role of the Library vis- -vis the nation. But rather than analyze these as separate etiologies, Collins sees them as the expression of an inherently Janus-faced information society that limits information and forecloses debate even as it multiplies avenues of access. Collins considers multiple sites at the Library-its spaces, its artifacts and organization-as contested sites where varied actors negotiate information, knowledge and nation amidst an institution whose own shifting priorities synecdochally mirror the ambiguities and unease of contemporary society.

The Prejudices and Antipathies of Art: Teaching Students about Bias in the Library of Congress Fine Arts Classification during One-Shot Instruction.
While neutrality was one of the original tenants of the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) and its subject headings (LCSH), both are centered in white, male, Eurocentric power structures. How can art librarians with instruction responsibilities intervene so their patrons know they are working with a biased system? After investigating how the LCC Fine Arts range privileges white, male, European art over art made by women and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists by favoring fine art over craft, this article discusses a thirty-minute lesson plan that introduces students to these inherent biases within LCC. [This article is a revision of a paper presented during the 50th annual ARLIS/NA conference held in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2022.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Unsettling the Library Catalog: A Case Study in Reducing the Presence of “Indians of North America” and Similar Subject Headings
As the University of Denver (DU) has begun to accept and wrestle with its history, the DU Libraries have looked for ways it may be perpetuating the harms done to Indigenous populations. An example of this work can be seen in the libraries' work on changing the displayed terminology used in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to more current and appropriate headings that respect and correspond to the terminology used by the populations they are meant to represent. This article provides background for this work through a literature review and a more detailed account of how this topic is directly related to the institutional history of DU. A discussion of the specific steps and procedures taken to implement this change is followed by the obstacles encountered along the way and how they were overcome.
Improving Subject Headings for Iowa Indigenous People
By authorizing outdated terms for North American Indigenous peoples, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) vocabulary deprioritizes or ignores the preferred names of the peoples being described. As a result, cataloging and metadata professionals constrained by LCSH often must apply names imposed during colonization.

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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) Overview

Why the LCSH Is Changing

El Camino College Library Materials for Further Research