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Subject Headings

What are Subject Headings? (4)


Even more than deciding which subject headings apply to particular books, the Library of Congress also determines the vocabulary of the subject headings. This is important because there is no duplication of topics in subject headings. That is, the English language allows more than one way to represent a particular topic. For instance, “Death penalty” and “Capital punishment” basically represent the same topic. Similarly, “ Metropolitan hospitals” and “Urban hospitals” also represent the same topic, as do “Iron casting” and “Iron founding.” But in order to improve the efficiency of subject headings, whenever there is more than one way to represent a topic in ordinary language, the Library of Congress chooses only one of those ways to be the official subject heading. So, for example, it chooses "Capital punishment," “Urban hospitals,” and “Iron founding,” and rejects "Death penalty," “Metropolitan hospitals,” and “Iron casting.”



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