Subject Indexing in the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale

Over the last ten years, the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN) has become the largest Italian network of bibliographic services. The creation of the SBN Index database and its growth through shared cataloging were the focus of attention during the early phase, and for years, discussion was limited to questions of author cataloging and bibliographic description. Subject cataloging was excluded from the cooperative activity of the member libraries. In 1990 the Working Group on Subject Headings and Classes was established to examine this situation. First, a partial solution was found, to permit the launch of the network itself. This was followed, several years later, by the development of the SBN OPAC and the creation of the file of subject headings and classes in the SBN Index. From an operational perspective, the choice was made to forego managing the subject headings file in accordance with shared cataloging principles, with mixed results. In order for the subject file to have broader coverage and to further encourage cooperative subject cataloging, the SBN Index Development Program, in which the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane (ICCU) has been engaged for about two years, aims at enriching services of the database and opening up new and diversi-fied types of usage. Almost simultaneously the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF) initiated a feasibility study on the revision of the Soggettario delle biblioteche italiane (List of Subject Headings in Italian Libraries) for the catalogs of Italian libraries. Both the BNCF and the ICCU share the goal of building a new, consistent vocabulary for documentation of subject matter. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]