Critical Views of LCSH, 1990-2001: The Third Bibliographic Essay

This classified critical bibliography continues the work initiated by Monika Kirtland and Pauline Cochrane, and furthered by Steven Blake Shubert. Kirtland and Cochrane published a bibliography surveying the literature critical of LCSH from 1944-1979 titled “Critical Views of LCSH–Library of Congress Subject Headings, A Bibliographic and Bibliometric Essay.” Shubert analyzed another decade of literature in his article titled “Critical Views of LCSH–Ten Years Later: A Bibliographic Essay.” This current bibliography compiles the next twelve years of critical literature from 1990-2001. Persistent concerns of the past fifty-seven years include inadequate syndetic structure, currency or bias of the headings, and lack of specificity in the subject heading list. New developments and research are in the areas of subdivisions, mapping, indexer inconsistency, and post-coordination. LCSH must become more flexible and easier to use in order to increase its scalability and interoperability as an online subject searching tool. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]