Placing Headings in the Cataloging Record

Once subject headings have been chosen, the terms must be entered into the cataloging record for them to be of use to the patrons and staff of the library. This is done in one of two ways, depending on whether the library is automated or not.

If the library is entering their cataloging information into a computer, the subject headings must be entered in the appropriate area of the cataloging record. Where and when this information is entered depends on the cataloging program being used. In the following example, the subject headings are listed at the end of this computer catalog record display:

AUTHOR           Tripp, Valerie

TITLE                 Happy birthday Josefina! : a springtime story / by Valerie
                            Tripp ; illustrations, Jean-Paul Tibbles

EDITION           1st ed.

PUBLISHER      Middleton, WI : Pleasant Co., 1998.

DESCRIPT         69 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.

SERIES              The American girls collection

SUMMARY      Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like T`ia 
                           Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday
                           when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.

SUBJECTS       1) Healers—Fiction
                           2) Ranch life—New Mexico—Fiction
                           3) Mexican Americans—Fiction

 

This work has three subject headings, each with a form subdivision indicating the work deals with fictional treatment of each subject. Most computer catalog displays list the assigned subject headings near the end of the informational record. This is because at this point most patrons are more interested in the author, title and call number of a work, rather than it’s subject headings.

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